Samuel Johnson

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Suspicion is most often useless pain.

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.

I am stronger than my fear.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person

The money men make lives after them.

See, I think you live on earth a certain number of times until you finish what it is that you were meant to do here. And then you go on. I don’t think I’ll be back here. I think I’m done.

Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.

You. too, can determine what you want. You can decide on your major objectives, targets, aims, and destination.

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

Beauty rests on necessities.