Samuel Johnson

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

Self-realization is effortless. What you are trying to find is what you already are.

We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the dear deceit of beauty.

Not to be provok’d is best: But if mov’d, never correct till the Fume is spent; For every Stroke our Fury strikes, is sure to hit our selves at last.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: – I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…