Samuel Johnson

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

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

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

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

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

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

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

There is no daily chore so trivial that it cannot be made important by skipping it two days running.

A man’s wife has more power over him than the state has.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

The first wealth is health.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

If everyone is a product of this society, who will say the things that need to be said, and do the things that need to be done, without compromise?

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.