Samuel Johnson

Whatever you have spend less.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

The masses have no habit of self reliance or original action.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man’s self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains, and it is sometimes base; and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

I shall strike the stars with my unlifted head.

The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.

Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving.

A man’s personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.