Samuel Johnson

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.

No one ever became great by imitation.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

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.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life … would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you’ve taught him everything else first?

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.

Pictures must not be too picturesque.

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.