Samuel Johnson

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits; but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.

A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him.

None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.

Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.

In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of the news-writer is easy; they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.