No man was ever great by imitation. – Samuel Johnson
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil. – Samuel Johnson
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. – Samuel Johnson
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance. – Samuel Johnson
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. – Samuel Johnson
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. – Samuel Johnson
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. – Samuel Johnson
A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek. – Samuel Johnson
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. – Samuel Johnson
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. – Samuel Johnson
The future is purchased by the present. – Samuel Johnson
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. – Samuel Johnson
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne. – Samuel Johnson
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. – Samuel Johnson
Exercise is labor without weariness. – Samuel Johnson
All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it. – Samuel Johnson
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. – Samuel Johnson
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure. – Samuel Johnson
The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities. – Samuel Johnson
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance. – Samuel Johnson
