Samuel Johnson quotes for UPSC

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty.

Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.

Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it. A feeble government, eluded Laws, A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles, And all the maladies of stinking states.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

Resolve to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.

The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free, All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty. This, only this, the rigid Law persues, This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.

He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

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

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.

I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.

I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.

Language is the dress of thought.

The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

It is better to live rich, than to die rich.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.

How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

The future is purchased by the present.

Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short Summer — man a flower, He dies — alas! how soon he dies!

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.

If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.