Samuel Johnson

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

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

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Principles aren’t of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

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

When you’re first figuring yourself out, you care so much about what people think of you.

His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.

When Satan makes impure verses, Allah sends a divine tune to cleanse them.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

If someone betrays you once, it’s their fault; if they betray you twice, it’s your fault.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

The self divides into ten billion distinct illuminating spirits. Distinguish these without falling into names and classifications.