Samuel Johnson

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

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.

Whatever you have spend less.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.

I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

Our best history is still poetry.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.