Samuel Johnson

Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, Sir, I am your most humble servant. You are not his most humble servant. You may say, These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times. You don’t mind the times … You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don’t think foolishly.

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.

If thou rise with an Appetite, thou art sure never to sit down without one.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Croesus said to Cambyses; That peace was better than war; because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in wars the fathers did bury their sons.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

Self-realization is effortless. What you are trying to find is what you already are.

That which we call sin in others, is experiment for us.