Samuel Johnson

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

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Love is only one of many passions.

Whatever you have spend less.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

A man is a god in ruins.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung.

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.

Any experience of reality is indescribable!

Let us my friends snatch our opportunity from the passing day.

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

It doesn’t matter that your dream came true if you spent your whole life sleeping.

I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.