Samuel Johnson

A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

A good and faithful judge ever prefers the honorable to the expedient.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

No just cause is futile, even if it’s lost, if it helps make the future better than the past.

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

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

When it comes to the story of my heart, I am the villain, locking it away; denying its right be free. The chains are tight, restricting its growth; long enough to see through the window of opportunity, but the only escape it has, is via the pen. Why do I deny myself the opportunities? I know it comes from a place of protection, but also of fear. I think my heart has grown a resentment because of this betrayal, and has decided, enough is enough.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.

One of the benefits of a college education is to show the boy its little avail.