Samuel Johnson

Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

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 use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it….

As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

If you weren’t such a great man, you’d be a terrible bore.

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

Appearances matter – and remember to smile.

God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Tomorrow is always another day to make things right.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.