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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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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.
Samuel Johnson
If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still
Samuel Johnson
One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
Samuel Johnson
He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
Samuel Johnson
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
Samuel Johnson
About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
Samuel Johnson
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
Samuel Johnson
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.
Samuel Johnson
A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
Samuel Johnson
Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
Samuel Johnson
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
Samuel Johnson
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
He who endeavors to please must appear pleased.
Samuel Johnson
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Samuel Johnson
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
Samuel Johnson
If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.
Samuel Johnson
The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
Samuel Johnson
The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today
Samuel Johnson
I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
Samuel Johnson
