Samuel Johnson

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.

Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos; trees, clouds, everything.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.