Samuel Johnson

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

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

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

I shall strike the stars with my unlifted head.

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral deficiencies hidden under the dear deceit of beauty.

God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.

Surrender is faith that the power of love can accomplish anything… even when you can not foresee the outcome.

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size.

Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?

There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Today is a king in disguise.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.