Samuel Johnson

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

For knowledge itself is power.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

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.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing –a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.

There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.