Samuel Johnson

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good;be good for something.All fables, indeed, have their morals; but the innocent enjoy the story. Let nothing come between you and the light. Respect men and brothers only. When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,

There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.

I wish for you the wisdom to realize that forgiveness has nothing to do with an apology.

In a man’s letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

Give, even if you only have little.

Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

The natural law of inertia: Matter will remain at rest or continue in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force.

There’s much more stupidity than there is malice in the world.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, ‘Verify your quotations.’

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that’s just a fact.

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Who prays for Satan? Who, in 1,800 years, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.