Samuel Johnson

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

Reality is a sliding door.

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled.

There are no have-to’s, just choices.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Syllables govern the world.

I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision.

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.