Samuel Johnson

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

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

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

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

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

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

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then takes a young heart heating under fourscore winters.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or sides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profound thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.

We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.

The man who forgives is far stronger than the man who fights.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.