Samuel Johnson

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Live as brave men and face adversity with stout hearts.

The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?

An honest man is always a child.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.

The compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.