Samuel Johnson

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Round numbers are always false.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him.

I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are evil.

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.

For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.

The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui s, vanish, all duties even.

Culture is one thing and varnish is another.

If you lose money you lose much, If you lose friends you lose more, If you lose faith you lose all.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Defeat in itself was part and parcel of the great gambling game of politics. A man who could not accept it and try again was not of the stuff of which leaders are made.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

A good scare is worth more than good advice.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.