Samuel Johnson

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do what is right.

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.

Despite the enormous quantity of books, how few people read! And if one reads profitably, one would realize how much stupid stuff the vulgar herd is content to swallow every day.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial “we.”

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

You will find only what you bring in.

If a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if has a headache.