"A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience."

"Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.""

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

"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."

"Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven: but this does not refute my general assertion."

"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."

"Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them."

"I refute it thus."

"I [Boswell] happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place. JOHNSON: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here.""

"Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

"Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."

"Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. 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. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired."

"I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.""

"But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

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

"Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!"

"Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry."

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

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

"Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken."

"Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger."

"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."

"Towering is the confidence of twenty-one."

"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."

"A lady once asked him how he came to define 'pastern', the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as might be expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.""

"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."

"[Of Lord Chesterfield] This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!"

"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."

"I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities."

"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity."

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

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

"Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is."

"Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?"

"There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation."

"I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark."

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them."

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

"He was a very good hater."

"If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father."

"Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!"

"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

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