Samuel Johnson

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

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.