Samuel Johnson Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood. The Idler; Poems

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

3. In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. The Rambler

4. It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe. Life of Richard Savage

5. Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

6. Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

7. Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

8. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth. Lives of the poets: Milton

9. Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

10. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

11. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries. The Life of Samuel Johnson Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Vol 2

12. 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.

13. Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

14. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth. Lives of the poets: Milton

15. The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

16. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.

17. To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to enquire and answer enquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wanders about the world without pomp or terror, and is neither known nor valued but by men like himself. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia