Samuel Johnson

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain.

Appearances matter – and remember to smile.

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.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Tear thyself from delay.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

Adam was but human-this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

I was born upon thy bank, river, my blood flows in thy stream, and thou meanderest forever. At the bottom of my dream.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.