Samuel Johnson

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

I think that age is irrelevant. We’re all pretty much spiritual beings – I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I’m ancient, like two thousand years old.

It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

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

The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction,a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse.

This body of mine is my teacher. This heart of mine, my guide. My dear head struggles to make sense of it all whilst my hands gently remind me to trust and let go.

It’s like something shifted when I spoke to you, I can’t even put words to it. This sense of gentle peace, space, lightness, freedom. The realization that the longing I carried for so long, that pain was not about him all along. It was the yearning to return to that place from which, once upon a time, we all came.

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.