Samuel Johnson

The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

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.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.

And all the while I thought I was drowning, I was actually the one holding my head under the water.

You show your worth by what you seek! – Rumi

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly – a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.

When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?