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We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.

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
Smoke
Raises
Brightening
Expectations
Sinking
Ought
Pleasing
Power
Satisfy
Flame
Flames
Raise

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We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
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Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
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Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
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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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Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.
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When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
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Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.
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...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
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The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.
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Virtue is too often merely local.
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He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
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He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
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The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.
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Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
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The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
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It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
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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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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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