Samuel Johnson

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things they denote.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

You are all fundamentalists with a top dressing of science. That is why you are the stupidest of conservatives and reactionists in politics and the most bigoted of obstructionists in science itself. When it comes to getting a move on you are all of the same opinion: stop it, flog it, hang it, dynamite it, stamp it out.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

As Puppets are to Men, and Babies to Children, so is Man’s Workmanship to God’s: We are the Picture, he the Reality.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

The worst sin… is… to be indifferent.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.