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.