Samuel Johnson

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

For who is pleased with himself.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

To delay justice, is injustice.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another.

There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says, Anywhere but here.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character, putting together all their yesterdays and averaging them, we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support, it is worse than a large family, he is the silent poor indeed.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.

Principles aren’t of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him.

It’s powerful to have strong men but what does that strength mean?

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

I hate women because they always know where things are.