Samuel Johnson

Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

For who is pleased with himself.

We must train hard. It’s not about denying a weakness may exist but about denying its right to persist.

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

Our own life has to be our message.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I am not much an advocate for traveling, and I observe that men run away to other countries because they are not good in their own, and run back to their own because they pass for nothing in the new places. For the most part, only the light characters travel. Who are you that have no task to keep you at home?