Quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
    --Samuel Johnson 

When speculation has done its worst, two plus two still equals four.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
    --Samuel Johnson 

I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
    --Samuel Johnson 

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Round Numbers are always false.
    --Samuel Johnson 

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
    --Samuel Johnson 

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.
    --Samuel Johnson 

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
    --Samuel Johnson 

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
    --Samuel Johnson 

It is better to live rich than to die rich.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Knowledge is of two kinds: there is knowing a thing, and there is knowing where we may find information upon it.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
    --Samuel Johnson 

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.
    --Samuel Johnson 

Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
    --Samuel Johnson 

He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.
    --Samuel Johnson