Samuel Johnson

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

The remedy is worse than the disease.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.

To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

To watch this crystal globe just sent from heaven to associate with me. While these clouds and this somber drizzling weather shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one another. The gathering in of the clouds with the last rush and dying breath of the wind, and then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves the country over, the impression of inward comfort and Sociableness, the drenched stubble and trees that drop beads on you as you pass, their dim outline seen through the rain on all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself. These are my undisputed territory. This is Nature’s English comfort.

Tis the old secret of the gods that they come in low disguises.

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it.