Samuel Johnson

“The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”

“a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.”

“To bring back riches from the East you must bring riches with you.”

“Do not suffer life to stagnate, it will grow muddy for want of motion; commit yourself again to the current of the world.”

“Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.”

“And yet it fills me with wonder, that, in almost all countries, the most ancient poets are considered as the best: whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe Nature and Passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them, but transcription of the same events, and new combinations of the same images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly observed that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art: that the first excel in strength and innovation, and the latter in elegance and refinement.”

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

“Never trust a man who writes more than he reads.”

“Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.”

“If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”

“Unnumbered suppliants crowd Preferment's gateAthirst for wealth, and burning to be great;Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant call,They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall.”

“Your aspirations are your possibilities.”

“Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.”

“Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.”

“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity.”

“Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.”

“Wenn wir sehen, wie die Menschen altern und nach gewisser Zeit einer nach dem anderen sterben, Jahrhundert für Jahrhundert, dann können wir nur lachen über das Elixier, das die Verlängerung des Lebens auf über tausend Jahre verspricht; mit gleichem Recht ist der Lexikograph zu verspotten, der ohne das Beispiel einer Nation anführen zu können, die ihre Wörter und Ausdrücke vor Veränderlichkeit bewahrte, sich einbildet, sein Wörterbuch könne seine Sprache einbalsamieren, vor Verfälschung schützen und Verfall, und der meint, es stehe in seiner Macht, irdische Natur zu ändern oder die Welt mit einem Schlag von Verrücktheit, Eitelkeit und Affektiertheit zu befreien.”

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”

“Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust or to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men.”

“My nights are flatulent and unquiet.”

“God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?”

“The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.”

“How small, of all that human hearts endure,That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,Our own felicity we make or find:”

“The true art of memory, is the art of attention”

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

“I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules”

“Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!”

“Once a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.”

“Pleasure is seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”

“No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.”

“God himself, sir, doesn't propose to judge man until the end of his days. (So why should you and I? ~ this latter part is added by Napoleon Hill)”

“our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness”

“I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.”

“Such, said Nekayah, is the state of life, none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish it to change again. The world is not yet exhausted. Let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.”

“I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.”

“Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.”

“There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.”

“Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.”

“The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance.”

“Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence."(Essay on Tea, 1757.)”

“It is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.”

“Κανένα μέρος δεν προβάλλει τόσο έντονα τη ματαιότητα των ανθρώπινων ελπίδων, όσο μια δημόσια βιβλιοθήκη”

“Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.”

“A man must assume the moral burden of his own boredom.”

“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”

“Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.”

“No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.”

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

“All censure of a man’s self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.”