Samuel Johnson

Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay to an author.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

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

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil.

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.

The rain comes and what bends will rise. It is a purposeful journey.

For we put the power in the people.

Learn to say “I don’t know.” If used when appropriate, it will be often.

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

If you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.