Samuel Johnson

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then

The world is its own magic.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

We are free to yield to truth.

Work and thou canst escape the reward; whether the work be fine or course, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought.