Samuel Johnson

Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

A very unclubable man.

No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

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

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.