Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel JohnsonPoverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
Samuel JohnsonExtended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
Samuel JohnsonHe that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.
Samuel JohnsonIf an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.
Samuel Johnson