Samuel Johnson

England
18 Sep 1709 // 13 Dec 1784
Writer

Quotes

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Men become friends by a community of pleasures
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it
Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature
Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding
Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship
Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present
Judgment is forced upon us by experience
It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays