Samuel Johnson

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

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.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Sometimes if I see negative things it really doesn’t faze me, because you’ve got to be tough and you’ve got to be you.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

There is properly no history; only biography.

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.

Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

It’s not burn baby burn, but learn, baby, learn, so that you can earn, baby, earn.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.