All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood.

More from Samuel Johnson

• Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
• He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done.
• I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
• I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.
• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
• It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.