Samuel Johnson

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only – not from its privileged classes.

What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words – 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man – the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

The greatest man in history was the poorest.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

It’s so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

Reading Proust isn’t just reading a book, it’s an experience and you can’t reject an experience.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.

Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong.

In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.