Samuel Johnson

Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

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

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

The future is purchased by the present.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

Never marry but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.

All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.

We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.