In every picture there should be shade as well as light.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.

What an insignificant life is this which I am now leading!

I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose. Besides, practice forms a man to anything.

Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."

In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers.