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.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds.

He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul’s estate.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

A lot of power and bravery is practice. And some of that is taking the risk to try and be at the table. And then when you’re at the table, taking that first risk to open your mouth and risk being rejected.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to carry it off.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.