Samuel Johnson

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

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.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

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.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

Mementos of this world, in which the things worth being were so easily exchanged for the things worth having.

Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

Anger makes dull men witty – but it keeps them poor.

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

Don’t be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don’t bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives. Don’t waste yourself in rejection, or bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Bondage is… subjection to external influences and internal negative thoughts and attitudes.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

We cannot see things that stare us in the face until the hour comes that the mind is ripened.

It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.