Samuel Johnson

A very unclubable man.

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

Adversity is the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then.

The first years of man must make provision for the last.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.

Johnson observed that he 'did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'.