Samuel Johnson
168 quotations
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.
The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.
Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.
Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.