Samuel Johnson

I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

Whatever advice you give, be short.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right.

A wise man makes what he learns his own, the other shows he is but a copy or a collection at most.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

Pity is for living, envy is for dead.

The disciplined are free.

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.

Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.