Samuel Johnson

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound.

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

Whatever you have spend less.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.

The most dangerous people are those who have passion but lack wisdom.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message.

He hates chess. He says it is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something clever when they are only wasting their time.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

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

Cultivate kindness today and always.

The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.

For every why he had a wherefore.