Samuel Johnson

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

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

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

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

[on Michelle] After about 15 years I finally figured out that she’s always right!

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.

Many marriages would be better if the husband and the wife clearly understood that they are on the same side.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.

If you were going to list the 100 most popular things that I have done as president. Being married to Michelle Obama is number one.

What Michelle has done is to remind me every day of the virtues of order.

Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman in marriage.

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?

My last divorce was in ’68. What made it come to a head was a promise. See, I had promised her that the next year I wouldn’t work as much. But then I got in trouble with the IRS, and I had to continue working just as much to pay the government. So she said I lied, which is something I never did.

The greatest day of my life was the day I married Mrs. Ford.