Samuel Johnson

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.

A vow is a snare for sin.

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

Words are alive; cut them and they bleed.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.