Samuel Johnson Quotes About Honesty

• There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Friendship, Confidence, Honesty

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.113

• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

  Samuel Johnson

  Education, Honesty, Integrity

  'Rasselas' (1759) ch. 41

• A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.409

• These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Honesty, Integrity

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.115

• It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Honesty, Men, Want

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.110

• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Honesty, Men, People

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 25 Mar. 1776)

• He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

  Samuel Johnson

  Courage, Honesty, Work

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.82

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