Samuel Johnson

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

No man was ever great by imitation.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Upon awakening, let the words Thank You flow from your lips, for this will remind you to begin your day with gratitude and compassion.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.

The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. While he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

Love truth, but pardon error.

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

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

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

I believe that every person is born with talent.

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

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Its proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.