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This is my history like all other histories, a narrative of misery.

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
Narrative
Misery
History
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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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.
Samuel Johnson
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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.
Samuel Johnson
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Where there is emulation, there will be vanity where there is vanity, there will be folly.
Samuel Johnson
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Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
Samuel Johnson
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There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey.
Samuel Johnson
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It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow.
Samuel Johnson
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He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
Samuel Johnson
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Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
Samuel Johnson
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Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
Samuel Johnson
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A mere literary man is a dull man a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Samuel Johnson
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The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Samuel Johnson
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Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson
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Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
Samuel Johnson
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He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
Samuel Johnson
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As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
Samuel Johnson
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Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.
Samuel Johnson
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The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous and where among her followers will she find a husband?
Samuel Johnson
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Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
Samuel Johnson
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Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.
Samuel Johnson