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There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur so many immediate evils are

Samuel Johnson

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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
Truth
Corruption
Credulity
Need
Faults
Forsake
Many
Indeed
Imposing
Needs
Ignorance
Convenience
Mankind
Evils
Present
Occur
Evil
Frequently
Others
Immediate
Incitement

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The really happy woman is the one who can enjoy the scenery when she has to take a detour. Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but rather a manner of traveling.
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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
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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
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Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous.
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The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
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Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is but it is not easy to tell what it is.
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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.
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The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.
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I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.
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To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without, a comparison but it has never been my fortune to find, either in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have, with equal blindness, hated their country.
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Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
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Languages are the pedigree of nations.
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Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
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The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
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We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it.
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It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
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As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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