Samuel Johnson

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

It’s not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.

Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid of.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

I thus free myself from the illness of ego-clinging.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

No two on earth in all things can agree. All have some daring singularity.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

When the romance is gone, if it’s always you left searching for it, maybe it’s time to stop looking, and start searching for someone new, and start a new romantic journey.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?