Samuel Johnson

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

Security will produce danger.

The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.

If you want the moon, do not hide from the night. If you want a rose, do not hide from the thorns. If you want love, do not hide from yourself.

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, — for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, — for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

The stupidity of men always invites the insolence of power.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

Recognize the ego for what it is: a collective dysfunction, the insanity of the human mind.

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.