Samuel Johnson

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

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

Truth is a naked and open daylight.

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.

No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.

When you place yourself in a position to help another, you will discover your greater capabilities.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.

Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.