Samuel Johnson

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both but by too much prudence may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

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

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself, I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

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.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Melancholy indeed should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

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.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done compared to what he might have done.

Let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich.

The future is purchased by the present.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected and less just.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it but I am afraid he is an attorney.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.

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

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

That we must all die we always knew, I wish I had remembered it sooner.

From the middle of life onward only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

Life is not long and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

So many objections may be made to everything that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it but is always breaking away from the present moment and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it though we know it can never be reached.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Of all noises I think music is the least disagreeable.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

He who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.