Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Work
Spend
Make
Industry
Good
Poor
Keep
Exert
Money
Idle
Cannot
Whereas
Without
Luxury
Giving
Spending

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Languages are the pedigree of nations.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
Samuel Johnson
Image
High people, sir, are the best take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Revenge is an act of passion vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged crimes are avenged.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
Samuel Johnson
Image
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Samuel Johnson
Image
Was ever poet so trusted before?
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson
Image
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure.
Samuel Johnson