The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book I assure you.
~ Samuel Johnson
When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.
Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance.
Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
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.
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
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.
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
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.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
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.
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
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.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
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.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
