Samuel Johnson

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

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.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money’s sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal.That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful-while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

The worst solitude is to have no real friendships.

Merry Christmas! the man threatened.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

New arts destroy the old.

It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.

Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

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

Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first.