Samuel Johnson

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it.

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

Courtesy Life be not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

Never read any book that is not a year old.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution.

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.

That man is idle who can do something better.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.