Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Quotes

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

• The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

• Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

• It is the doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquility.

• Life affords no higher pleasure than that of summoning difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

• Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

• A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

• We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

• What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

• Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

• What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

• Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

• If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.

• 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.

• Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

• Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.

• Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

• Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

• When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.