Samuel Johnson

Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.

The endearing elegance of female friendship.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

All I want to do is change the world.

I’ve learned that from my husband, that sort of, you know, ability to not get too high or too low with changes and bumps in the road.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.