Samuel Johnson

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man, you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind, I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring.

The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.

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