Quotes by Samuel Johnson

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you havent courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

You cant be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute whos for you and whos against you.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly.