Samuel Johnson

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.

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

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

This gives force to the strong — that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.

Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another’s air with another’s breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

You. Not wanting me. Was the beginning of me wanting myself. Thank you.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive.

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

We know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves…