Samuel Johnson

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.

In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.

Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

I believe that every person is born with talent.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Wake up, lift your head, open your eyes, and dream. Gaze softly into your heart’s whispers. Notice the pull of your belly and that which makes you come alive. Let your soul speak, beckoning you to embark on that one voyage you can no longer let lie.

Genius Borrows nobly.

Who’s not sat tense before his own heart’s curtain.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.