The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
Samuel Johnson

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
Samuel Johnson

Leisure
and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were
they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Samuel Johnson

Depend
upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in
them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but
pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Samuel Johnson

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
Samuel Johnson

It
is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined
by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and
all that we would not, see.
Samuel Johnson

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?
Samuel Johnson

You
find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No,
Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in
London all that life can afford.
Samuel Johnson

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Samuel Johnson

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
Samuel Johnson

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.
Samuel Johnson

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
Samuel Johnson

To
get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that
cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be
deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Samuel Johnson

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
Samuel Johnson

To
be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to
which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire
prompts the prosecution.
Samuel Johnson

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.
Samuel Johnson

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.
Samuel Johnson

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Samuel Johnson

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Samuel Johnson

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
Samuel Johnson

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
Samuel Johnson

Exercise is labor without weariness.
Samuel Johnson

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.
Samuel Johnson

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Samuel Johnson

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Samuel Johnson

Every
man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a
right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Samuel Johnson

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
Samuel Johnson

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson

So
far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two
people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident
superiority over the other.
Samuel Johnson

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
Samuel Johnson

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Samuel Johnson

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
Samuel Johnson

Such
is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of
change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next
wish is to change again.
Samuel Johnson

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
Samuel Johnson

Subordination
tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we
should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Samuel Johnson

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson

Love is only one of many passions.
Samuel Johnson

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
Samuel Johnson

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson

You
cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you
do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by
spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving
it, you keep them idle.
Samuel Johnson

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.
Samuel Johnson

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson

Money
and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all
mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Samuel Johnson

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Samuel Johnson

There
is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by
studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little
misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
Samuel Johnson

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Samuel Johnson

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
Samuel Johnson