Samuel Johnson

Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

If thou art clean and warm, it is sufficient; for more doth but rob the Poor, and please the Wanton.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

You show your worth by what you seek! – Rumi

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

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

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.