Samuel Johnson

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

In a man’s letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any effect other than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ is a snivelling modern invention, with no warrant in the gospels.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Common people do not pray; they only beg.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrate to some stroke of the imagination.

He that has given today may, if he so please, take away tomorrow.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

One soweth and another reapeth is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.