Samuel Johnson

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

Friendship, ‘the wine of life,’ said Boswell, should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed. And Dr. Johnson added to this A man, Sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Moms. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

If you protect a man from folly, you will soon have a nation of fools.

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.

Remember who you are.

A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as this brain.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper.

With a burst of joy, my heels sprout wings, smile dancing. My heart sings like a bird caged, set free to soar, senses heightened like never before. Life. Is. Good.