Samuel Johnson

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it. Some Folks think they may Scold, Rail, Hate, Rob and Kill too; so it be but for God’s sake. But nothing in us unlike him, can please him.

If there be three distinct and separate Persons, then three distinct and separate Substances. . . . And since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God . . . then unless the Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct Nothings, they must be three distinct Substances, and consequently three distinct Gods.

You are perfect. An exquisitely fine work of art, labor of love, suspended in silence. Bejeweled, trembling, kissed by a breeze, mesmerized by your beauty. You await in silence, beckoning me to a silken-wrapped slumber.

Time is but the stream I go fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

Justice though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.

Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.

The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.