Samuel Johnson Quotes

We notice that the mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor.... Millions will always remain poor.

He is not poor that hath not much, but he that craves much.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

It's so much better to desire than to have.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

Can people who hunger so desperately for what other people have ever have enough?

You don't find happiness by being able to buy everything you want, whenever you want it.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.

Poor is the man who desires a lot

Our economy is based upon people wanting more; their happiness on wanting less.

Let's live with that small pittance which we have; Who covets more is evermore a slave.

How much money does it take to make a man happy? Just one more dollar.

If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.

When we are not rich enough to be able to purchase happiness, we must not approach to near and gaze on it in shop windows.

Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long, 'Tis not with me exactly so; But 'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more.

I have known lots of millionaires who were not happy men; they had not got all they wanted and therefore had failed to find success in life. A Singalese proverb says: "He who is happy is rich, but it does not follow that he who is rich is happy." The really rich man is the man who has fewest wants.

To be content with little is hard; to be content with much, impossible.

The true way to gain much, is never to desire to gain too much.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

I'm not overly greedy.

The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.

The hardest thing is to take less when you can get more.