Quote

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.

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
Full
Holds
Small
Glass
Happiness
Equally
Happy
Glasses
True
Philosopher
May
Satisfied
Drinking
Peasant
Large
Peasants

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or drown at last.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
Samuel Johnson
Image
I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
Samuel Johnson
Image
A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
Samuel Johnson
Image
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Foppery is never cured it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it
Samuel Johnson