Samuel Johnson

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Fueling your body is a process… The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

You don’t learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

The amount of people in this world who are here to do something great far outweighs the rest.

For so many people, TV and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them. It becomes important for the world to see different images of each other, so that we can develop empathy and understanding.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

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

Do what we can, summer will have its flies.