Samuel Johnson

I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children.

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

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts – a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.

Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Sexes make no Difference; since in Souls there is none: And they are the Subjects of Friendship.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.