Samuel Johnson

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

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

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

A verse from the Veda says, ‘What you see, you become.’ In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.

Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.

For character too is a process and an unfolding… among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

The amount of people in this world who are here to do something great far outweighs the rest.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.