Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

The happiest part of a mans life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

The greatest part of a writers time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

What is easy is seldom excellent.