Samuel Johnson

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

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

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 mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

I am stronger than my fear.

I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.

Reality is a sliding door.

In the word of no master am I bound to believe.

There’s a great joy in my giving. It’s thrilling. It’s exhilarating. It’s important to be a part of sharing. It is my love. It is my joy.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

A hen is only a egg’s way of making another egg.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the invisible thought of his mind.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. ‘Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.