Samuel Johnson

I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

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.

A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

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 remove.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.

Language is the dress of thought.

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.