Samuel Johnson

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

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.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

The only thing grief as taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.