"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

Happiness

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Insight & Reflection

The theme of happiness is universal, yet Samuel Johnson manages to capture its essence in a uniquely profound way. Taking a moment to internalize this can shift our mindset, reminding us that our perspective on happiness often shapes our reality.

About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer and polymath who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The work for which he is best known is his 42,733-entry Dictionary of the English Language (1755). For this and other contributions in and to the English language, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has called him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the ShortQuote Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Samuel Johnson

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

— Samuel Johnson
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"I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him."

— Samuel Johnson
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"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

— Samuel Johnson
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"There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

— Samuel Johnson
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More about Happiness

"But it is my happiness to be half Welsh, and that the better half."

— Richard Cobden
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"You want a happy ending, but not such a ridiculous happy ending that it doesn't mean anything to anybody."

— Paul Feig
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"The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?"

— Marquis de Sade
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"Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it."

— Fyodor Dostoevsky
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