Samuel Johnson

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.

Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people

One definition of man is an intelligence served by organs.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

The studious class are their own victims: they are thin and pale, their feet are cold, their heads are hot, the night is without sleep, the day a fear of interruption –pallor, squalor, hunger, and egotism.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth seems true. A simple morning’s greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

There is a crack in everything God has made.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.