Samuel Johnson – Page 2

I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society. – Samuel Johnson

Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the childs rattle, and the old man does not care for the young mans whore. – Samuel Johnson

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. – Samuel Johnson

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them. – Samuel Johnson

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed. – Samuel Johnson

Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled. – Samuel Johnson

There are charms made only for distance admiration. – Samuel Johnson

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman. – Samuel Johnson

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most. – Samuel Johnson

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion. – Samuel Johnson

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land. – Samuel Johnson

In a mans 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

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something. – Samuel Johnson

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast. – Samuel Johnson

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate. – Samuel Johnson

Its proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. – Samuel Johnson

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. – Samuel Johnson

Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return. – Samuel Johnson

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman. – Samuel Johnson

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other. – Samuel Johnson