Samuel Johnson

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.

The billiard table is better than the doctor.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

The quieter you become, you more you are able to hear.

Once I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: No good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

The truest end of life is to know that life never ends.

Courage consists in equality to the problem before us.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another. The gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of the wind, and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country over, the impression of inward comfort and Sociableness, the drenched stubble and trees that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline seen through the rain on all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself. These are my undisputed territory. This is Nature’s English comfort.