1709-1784, British Author
A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
Samuel Johnson – [Entertainment]
A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
Samuel Johnson – [Praise]
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
Samuel Johnson – [Welfare]
A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Samuel Johnson – [Abuse]
A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.
Samuel Johnson – [Judgment and Judges]
A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.
Samuel Johnson – [Wives]
A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Samuel Johnson – [Books and Reading]
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson – [Food and Eating]
A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
Samuel Johnson – [Alcohol and Alcoholism]
A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.
Samuel Johnson – [Preachers and Preaching]
A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Samuel Johnson – [Respectability]
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 – [Letters]
A vow is a snare for sin.
Samuel Johnson – [Vow]
A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.
Samuel Johnson – [Piety]
Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.
Samuel Johnson – [Adversity]
Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.
Samuel Johnson – [Public Opinion]
All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Samuel Johnson – [Freedom]
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson – [Wonder]
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson – [Imitation]
And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
Samuel Johnson – [Revolutions and Revolutionaries]