Samuel Johnson

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake.

Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

How can you dare teach a man to read until you’ve taught him everything else first?

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy.

By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.