Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth. – Samuel Johnson
The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm. – Samuel Johnson
[W]ith an unquiet mind, neither exercise, nor diet, nor physick can be of much use. – Samuel Johnson
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution. – Samuel Johnson
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. – Samuel Johnson
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. – Samuel Johnson
Language is the dress of thought. – Samuel Johnson
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. – Samuel Johnson
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself. – Samuel Johnson
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly. – Samuel Johnson
Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain. – Samuel Johnson
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable. – Samuel Johnson
This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery. – Samuel Johnson
Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it. – Samuel Johnson
The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts. – Samuel Johnson
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. – Samuel Johnson
Grief is a species of idleness. – Samuel Johnson
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. – Samuel Johnson
Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else. – Samuel Johnson
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets. – Samuel Johnson
