Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
— Samuel Johnson
From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
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.
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
What is easy is seldom excellent.
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
