Samuel Johnson

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

Few men survey themselves with such severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Truth, Sir, is a cow, which will yield such people [skeptics] no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.

Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us.

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value to its scarcity.

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.