English poet, biographer, essayist, lexicographer
He was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queens New Years Honours List for his services to Australian society and Australian film production.
(October 2003) Preparing to ride a unicycle from Sydney to Melbourne for charity.
(January 2009) Surry Hills, New South Wales, Australia
Founder, with sister Connie Johnson , of cancer charity Love Your Sister.
Brother of Connie Johnson.
It is necessary to hope. . . for hope itself is happiness.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!,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.
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
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.
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.
That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.
Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
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.
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.
There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.
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.
People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures. —You might teach making of shoes by lectures!,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.
My congratulations to you, sir. 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.
Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.
Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.
You can never be wise unless you love reading.
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. " Samuel Johnson,[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness,Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. " -,men do not suspect faults which they do not commit,Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
The true art of memory, is the art of attention,All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.
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.
I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy.
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Hell is paved with good intentions.
Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?,Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
Language is the dress of thought.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.
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.
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.
We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.
Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint.
We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?,Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.
The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity.
Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation,To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being especially free from admirers then.
Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being free from flatterers.
He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state and so is most beneficial to us.
Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love like being enlivened with champagne.
A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge.
Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none at all and even the best cannot be expected to run quite true.
No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Shame arises from the fear of man conscience from the fear of God.
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition no vanity but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.
Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.
None are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing when we have made it the next wish is to change again.
Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing. When we have made it the next wish is to change again.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Moderation is commonly firm and firmness is commonly successful.
Abstinence is as easy for me as temperance would be difficult.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that is makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly but then less is learned there so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.
Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
Example is more efficacious than precept.
He that has much to do will do something wrong.
Round numbers are always false.
O how vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
A fishing-rod was a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek.
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
A man Sir should keep his friendship in constant repair.
It is foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the chastity of a wife.
No man is much pleased with a companion who does not increase in some respect his fondness of himself.
An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life he will soon find himself left alone.
Always set 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.
Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
Friendship is a union of spirits a marriage of hearts and the bond there of virtue.
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting there must not only be equal virtue on each part but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed but the same means must be approved by both.
Men only become friends by community of pleasures.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef.
The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction.
Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
I have found men more kind than I expected and less just.
Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?,No man ever yet became great by imitation.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.
It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing when we have made it the next wish is to change again.
I like a good hater.
Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not.
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused at the time but they will be remembered and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.
Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords.
Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords.
In all pleasure hope is a considerable part.
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty sickness and captivity would without this comfort be insupportable.
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
A fly Sir may sting a stately horse and make him wince but one is but an insect and the other a horse still.
Knowledge is of two kinds we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.
A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
Man is not weak - knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.
It is the just doom of laziness and a gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquillity.
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
The joy of life is variety the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.
Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Marriages would in general be as happy and often more so if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor.
It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Had I learned to fiddle I should have done nothing else.
He left the name at which the world grew pale To point a moral or adorn a tale.
An Italian philosopher said that "time was his estate" an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry and generally satisfy the most extensive desires if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence to be overrun with noxious plants or laid out for show rather than for use.
Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
To improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach is the great art of life.
It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
We are convinced that happiness is never to be found and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive .
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Pride is seldom delicate: it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Oats n. s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people.
To be of no Church is dangerous.
Prudence keeps life safe but does not often make it happy.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
Prudence keeps life safe but does not often make it happy.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
I live in the crowds of jollity not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.
When any fit of gloominess or perversion of mind lays hold upon you make it a rule not to publish it by complaints.
Despair is criminal.
Silence propagates itself and the longer talk has been suspended the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand no doubt we should pity the state of his mind but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first and pity him afterwards.
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
While grief is fresh every attempt to divert it only irritates.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
The future is purchased by the present.
No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity.
Being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man because he has both enjoyments.
As the Spanish proverb says "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. " So it is in traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks is truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.
When two Englishmen meet their first talk is of the weather.
Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.
Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Men know that women are an overmatch for them and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth and that things are the sons of heaven.
Languages are the pedigree of nations.
When speculation has done its worst two and two still make four.
Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.
The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book I assure you.
When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. . . The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
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.
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
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.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
There is nothing, Sir, 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.
There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. . . No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. . . a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
What is easy is seldom excellent.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and. . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.
Exercise is labor without weariness.
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.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it.
The future is purchased by the present. .
