Samuel Johnson

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

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

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.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.

In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.

When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

Those who would mend the world must first mend themselves.

Self-command is the main discipline.

Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.