Samuel Johnson

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

It is necessary to hope… for hope itself is happiness.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

I know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, or thoughts are affection; and am sensible of certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is no part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

People ignore the thing they have the most power over. I know so many people who will go to a protest and do something big on an issue. But they won’t deal with that issue in their home.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

I could not find the world if I searched ten years. I’ve forgotten the road by which I came.