Samuel Johnson

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection, must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of dignity of benefaction.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

Ask counsel of both timesof the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence.

Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.