Samuel Johnson

It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any effect other than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

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

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

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message.

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

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.

Every mind has a choice between truth and repose. Take which you please you can never have both.

Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred a want, which is incipient habit?

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.