Samuel Johnson

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the …

The future is purchased by the present.

But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long …

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.

As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty.

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find.

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.