Samuel Johnson

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

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.

It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

There is no such thing as the Queen’s English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil.

Every man is an impossibility until he is born.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.