Samuel Johnson

Words are but the signs of ideas.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

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

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to prepare for the long haul, the rise and fall, and let neither define your sense of self.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.

Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

When I feel like dancing, I dance. I don’t care if anyone else is dancing or if everyone else is laughing at me. I dance.

The way to do well is to do well.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.

It always seems impossible until it is done.

We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.