12 Samuel Johnson Quotes on Human nature

Samuel Johnson quotes on human nature

5. The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

16. 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.

18. 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.

38. 'Enlarge my life with multitude of days!' In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays: Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.

54. No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

57. That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

77. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.

98. The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.

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

126. 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.

146. 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.

195. As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.