Samuel Johnson

Men hate more steadily than they love.

Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.

When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it; you will dry it away. Be always busy.

All industry must be excited by hope.

Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.

Prosperity's right hand is industry and her left hand is frugality.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.

The happiness of building lasted but a little while, for though I love to spend, I hate to be cheated; and I soon found, that to build is to be robbed.

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

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

As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.

Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Network. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.

There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example.

To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.