Samuel Johnson

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

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails – aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness…

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘always do what you are afraid to do.’

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

Death then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision.

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.