All Quotes

"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.""

"I refute it thus."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden."

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

"Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds."

"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 one book."

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

"Hell is paved with good intentions."

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

"There is now 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."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts."

"A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man when he gets into a higher sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, Sir, those who knew him formerly upon a level with themselves, may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an acquaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before higher company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them."

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

"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."

"Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment."

"Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both."

"Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased."

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

"I [Boswell] was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him. JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and say he was a dunce.""

"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

"Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies."

"It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children."

"All argument is against it; but all belief is for it."

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

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

"Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get."

"A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone."

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."

"Pleasure of itself is not a vice."

"The studio people want me to do "Goodbye Charlie" for the movies, but I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body — you know? It just doesn't seem feminine."

"First, I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm a person. Then maybe I'll convince myself that I'm an actress."

"The truth is I've never fooled anyone. I've let men sometimes fool themselves. Men sometimes didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead, they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them — and fooling them."

"If you get massages, you'll never need another sleeping pill."

"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."

"I don't know who invented the high heel, but all women owe him a lot. Excuse the pun, but it was the high heel that gave a big lift to my career."

"The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up."

"Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives."

"My work is the only ground I've ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation — but I'm working on the foundation."

"Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents."

"When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does. People, you run into feel that, well, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature — and it won't hurt your feelings — like it's happening to your clothes, not you."

"Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you."