Samuel Johnson

“Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.”

“Exercise is labor without weariness.”

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

“If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?”

“To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.”

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”

“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.”

“Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.”

“A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.”

“Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”

“Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.”

“The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.”

“He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.”

“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.”

“You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.”

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

“Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.”

“No man was ever great by imitation.”

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

“Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.”