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Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected that which elevates must always surprise.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Pleasure
Pleasures
Whatever
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Must
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Something
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Always
Benefits
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Please
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Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
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Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
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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.
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I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
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We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
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He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
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No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
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Still we love The evil we do, until we suffer it.
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If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.
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What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s
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Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.
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He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
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He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
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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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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
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How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
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Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
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