Samuel Johnson

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

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.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.