Samuel Johnson

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection, must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of dignity of benefaction.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring.

There is no daily chore so trivial that it cannot be made important by skipping it two days running.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

If we don’t occupy ourself with everything, then peaceful mind will have nowhere to abide.

At the end of the day, life is about being happy being who you are.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.