Samuel Johnson

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

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

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

In America the geography is sublime, but the men are not; the inventions are excellent, but the inventors one is sometimes ashamed of.

The eye is the jewel of the body.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Man – a creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.

A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; …they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; …those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It comes at last-the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them-and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, …a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

Patience makes lighter What sorrow may not heal.

No matter how hard the past is, we can always begin again.

Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.