Samuel Johnson Quotes

He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself.

If you think everything you've done is great, you're probably dumb.

What we cut off from our other faults is very often but so much added to our pride.

Self-criticism, like self-administered brain surgery, is perhaps not a good idea. Can the 'self' see the 'self' with any objectivity?

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

I wish I could say confidently that pacing remains my weak point, if you could talk about your own stuff without sounding like you're self-obsessed. But I think you kind of have to be.

When you talk yourself, you think how witty, how original, how acute you are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only - What a crib from Rochefoucauld!

I just don't believe the hype. I just don't take myself too seriously. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

We always take credit for the good and attribute the bad to fortune.

I'm severely overrated. I'm just above a hack. That should be the name of my new DVD: 'Chris Rock: Slightly Above Hack'.

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your looking glass.

I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.

I'm the last one who would do self-analysis.

If I have learned one thing in life, it is never to take any man's own estimate of himself. He could very well be mistaken.

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

Imagination … which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions that are not immediately derived from facts ...

Humans naturally think more highly of themselves and their communities than their evidence can justify, but deny that they are biased in this way. This sincere confidence helps people to convince others to think highly of them, and to convince their group of their strong attachment to it. If you force yourself to face facts squarely you may gain better insight into yourself and human nature, and perhaps even signal a certain rare ability to achieve this result. But you may less convince others of your other abilities, and to convince your group of your loyalty

Am I impressed by myself? Nah, not really.

Even I can't talk about myself for an hour.

Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.

I try not to be super self-referential about my work because it becomes like navel gazing at a certain point.

Some people will stop a scene and demand a mirror and look at themselves and check which angles they're being photographed from. I don't do that.

I'm not one of those people that pretends he doesn't watch himself.

The hardest thing is to tell the truth about oneself. One doesn't like to remember unpleasant details, but forgetting them makes one's life seem disorganized.