Samuel Johnson

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

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 yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

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, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.

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

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

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

What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.