Samuel Johnson

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice.

No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

Will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?

A word once uttered can never be recalled.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

Every man’s work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

Fearful of missing anything, he read on, filled with this anticipation which was half terror, of coming upon something which would touch him, not simply touch him but lift him and carry him away.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one’s clothes.

Cultivate kindness today and always.

Society is a hospital of incurables.

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.