Samuel Johnson

No one ever became great by imitation.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

Business is the salt of life.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

If a man’s eye is on the Eternal, his intellect will grow.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a threadball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains on the thrower.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others… This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens with the flower of the pleasure that concealed it.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.