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The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

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
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Last
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Look
Till
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Feel
General
Propagated
Feels
Fiction
Profess
Every
Joy
Confirmed
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Consent
Happiness
Delusion

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What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.
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Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
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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.
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It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
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Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.
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No wonder, Sir, that he is vain a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
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We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
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Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.
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Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.
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Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
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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.
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So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
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Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.
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People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
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Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.
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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
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