Samuel Johnson

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Put an Irishman on the spit and you can always get another Irishman to turn him.

Live, let live, and help live

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Amuse not thy self therefore with the numerous Opinions of the World, nor value thy self upon verbal Orthodoxy, Philosophy, or thy Skill in Tongues, or Knowledge of the Fathers; (too much the Business and Vanity of the World). But in this rejoyce, That thou knowest God, that is the Lord, who exerciseth loving Kindness, and Judgment; and Righteousness in the Earth.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman – repose in energy.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

We must set up a strong present tense against all rumors of wrath, past and to come.

The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa….Leonardo had eye trouble….Art couldn’t explain it….But now we’re safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf…

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.