Samuel Johnson

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Such as take lodgings in a head that’s to be let unfurnished.

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.

Love truth, but pardon error.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

A word once uttered can never be recalled.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.

When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions…

The philosopher is Nature’s pilot. And there you have our difference: to be n hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. ‘Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.