He that hopes to look back hereafter with satisfaction upon past years must learn to know the present value of single minutes,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Tradition is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled. Memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. But… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction:… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. It is commonly observed, that among soldiers and seamen, though there is much… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure ... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
