Samuel Johnson

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

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

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone… I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.