Samuel Johnson

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

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.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

The seven deadly sins… food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones from Man’s neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted.

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lift human life above the level of farce and give it some of the grace of tragedy.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

Well, dinner would have been splendid!

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

Courage is exhilarating.