Samuel Johnson

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Whatever you have spend less.

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief -a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

Every person is a God in embryo. Its only desire is to be born.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe… the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers.

The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things they denote.

Then spare the rod and spoil the child.

It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

Exploring the mysteries of myself and the world. Sensual, powerful, wise… on my path…