Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

- Samuel Johnson

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

- Samuel Johnson

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

- Samuel Johnson

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

- Samuel Johnson

Words are but the signs of ideas.

- Samuel Johnson

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

- Samuel Johnson

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

- Samuel Johnson

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

- Samuel Johnson

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

- Samuel Johnson

The future is purchased by the present.

- Samuel Johnson

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

- Samuel Johnson

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

- Samuel Johnson

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

- Samuel Johnson

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

- Samuel Johnson

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

- Samuel Johnson

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

- Samuel Johnson

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

- Samuel Johnson

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

- Samuel Johnson

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

- Samuel Johnson

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

- Samuel Johnson