Samuel Johnson

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lift human life above the level of farce and give it some of the grace of tragedy.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I’ll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.

We need much less than we think we need.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog’s life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.

My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends. I have savored to the full all the small, daily joys. The bright sunshine on the breakfast table; the smell of the air at dusk; the sound of the clock ticking; the light rains that start gently after midnight; the hour when the family come home; Sunday-evening tea before the fire! I have never missed one moment of beauty, not even taken it for granted. Spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I wish I had failed as little in other ways.

It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.