Samuel Johnson

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

No man was ever great by imitation.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.

A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Your manuscript is both good and original but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

The future is purchased by the present.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne.