Samuel Johnson

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.

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

When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, now there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.

Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.

We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.

I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Who, being loved, is poor?

My heart must be bigger than my brain – blocking it out of all my decisions, so that I cannot think past the way I feel.

What’s the difference?’ I asked him, ‘Between the love of your life and your soulmate?’ ‘One is a choice, and one is not.’

But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

I believe we’re all in denial about the people we love.

He’s out his head, I’m out my mind. We got that love, the crazy kind.

Have you ever been so melancholy, that you wanted to fit in the palm of your beloved’s hand? And lie there, for fortnights, or decades, or the length of time between stars? In complete silence?

Love is only one fine star away.