Samuel Johnson

“There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

“There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.”

“It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.”

“Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.”

“The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.”

“Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.”

“Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.”

“He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.”

“Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.”

“Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.”

“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”

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

“All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.”

“Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.”

“The future is purchased by the present.”

“A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.”

“I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.”

“Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.”

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

“To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.”

“Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.”

“I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.”