He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
¶ (Attributed)
Quotations by ...
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable and others extremely difficult.
¶ (Attributed)
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
¶ (Attributed)
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
¶ (Attributed)
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor three hours a day will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.
¶ (Attributed)
Pleasure of itself is not a vice.
¶ (Attributed)
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
¶ (Attributed)
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
¶ (Attributed)
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
¶ (Attributed)
The vanity of being trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
¶ (Attributed)
Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
¶ (Attributed)
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone.
¶ (Attributed)
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified
¶ (Attributed)
Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
¶ (Attributed)
But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
¶ (Attributed)
All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.
¶ (Attributed)
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.
¶ (Attributed)
It is better to live rich, than to die rich.
¶ (Attributed)
If I were punished for every pun I shed, there would not be left a puny shed of my punnish head.
¶ (Attributed)
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
¶ (Attributed)
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.
¶ (Attributed)
Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.
¶ The Idler #30 (11 Nov 1758)
There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.
¶ The Idler (1758)
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never decieved us.
¶ The Idler (1758)
Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rules on composition: it produces vigilance rather than elevation, rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often escapes miscarriages but seldom reaches either power or horror. ... Prudence keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
¶ The Idler, #57
The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.
¶ The Plays of William Shakespeare, "Macbeth" (1765)
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity…. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
¶ The Rambler, #2 (24 Mar 1750)
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
¶ The Rambler (1751)
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
¶ The Rambler (19 Nov. 1751)
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
¶ The Rambler, #79
When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune. — So you hear people talking how miserable a King must be; and yet they all wish to be in his place.
¶ Boswell's Life of Johnson
Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
¶ Comment (19 Sep.1777)
in Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791)
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
¶ Comment (7 Apr 1775)
in Boswell's, Life of Johnson
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
¶ Letter to Lord Chesterfield
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