Samuel Johnson

If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

You can tell a lot about a person by listening to the way they talk about someone they once loved.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth into a liar – that I call an achievement.

How many are the things I can do without!

It is seldom that the miserable of the world can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

I find that the Americans have no passions, they have appetites.