Samuel Johnson

Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.

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.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

An honest man is always a child.

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist’s custom.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.

Wherever there is power there is age.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.