Samuel Johnson

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it cannot be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

The intuitive recognition of the instant, thus reality… is the highest act of wisdom.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.