About Samuel Johnson: Samuel Johnson is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
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 corruptio...
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, b...
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
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 a few words. We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true prin...
We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to ...
We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.
While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
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!
We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelp...
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.
It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.
