Johnson, Samuel Quotes

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.

There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Sorrow: a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.