Samuel Johnson

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

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

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.

Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.

Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.

I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

My reputation grows with every failure.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

The most dangerous thing is illusion.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship.

We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.