Samuel Johnson

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

But the mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change thing I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

If we are but sure the end is right, we are too apt to gallop over all bounds to compass it; not considering the lawful ends may be very unlawfully attained.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.

Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.