Samuel Johnson

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.

It’s them as take advantage that get advantage I this world.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

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

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

He gains everyone’s approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.