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Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Perhaps
Excesses
Pleasure
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Hope
Excess
Pain
Chief
Must
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Enjoyed
World
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Immoderately

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
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Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure.
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What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.
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A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.
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Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.
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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.
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Long customs are not easily broken he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.
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Applause abates diligence.
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The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
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Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
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Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.
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The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
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There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
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To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
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The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.
Samuel Johnson
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A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.
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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
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When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
Samuel Johnson