Samuel Johnson

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.

Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive.

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

Sometimes too much drink is barely enough.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

Work is always an antidote to depression.

When Satan makes impure verses, Allah sends a divine tune to cleanse them.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.