Samuel Johnson

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody

The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest applause.

Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone.

Beauty without expression is boring.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

If there is something to gain and nothing to lose by asking, by all means ask!

Business is the salt of life.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

As you get older, you realize that no one has all the answers. It turns out that life is an exercise in living with the certainty of uncertainty. – Jason Kilar

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

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.