Samuel Johnson

Example is more efficacious than precept.

Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.

There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly but then less is learned there so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

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

Abstinence is as easy for me as temperance would be difficult.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that is makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Moderation is commonly firm and firmness is commonly successful.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

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

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

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.

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.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

John Wesley's conversation is good but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do.

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition no vanity but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.