Samuel Johnson

The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken.

To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection, must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of dignity of benefaction.

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.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

The way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

So many fail because they don’t get started – they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.

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.

The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it… Beware of me, it says, but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule.

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.