Samuel Johnson

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

How small of all that human hearts endure That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place ensigned Our own felicity we make or find.

I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

What is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.

This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.

He who praises everybody praises nobody.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.