Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise.
Samuel JohnsonThere are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own beneficence.
Samuel JohnsonHe that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.
Samuel JohnsonMuch is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
Samuel JohnsonThe happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel JohnsonAmong those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions, and engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his enemy or his friend.
Samuel Johnson