Samuel Johnson

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

The future is purchased by the present.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you can not eat.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is – Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

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…

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Standing on the doorstep of desire, I hold this bouquet like a gun and these vows like a petition for the death penalty.