Samuel Johnson Giving Quotations

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.

Sir, you are giving a reason for it, but that will not make it right

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.

We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire.

The hour of reformation is always delayed; every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit.

Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.

Nature never gives everything at once.

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.

To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.

Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

It is more reasonable to wish for reputation while it may be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they propose to bestow upon his tomb.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

Guilt has always its horrors and solicitudes; and, to make it yet more shameful and detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence or weight but their power of betraying.

We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor