194 Quotes by Samuel Johnson about men


  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.

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