It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God; whether God is just; whether this life is the only state of existence.
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 JohnsonA wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
Samuel JohnsonNothing has so exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves. Those who have been taught to consider the institutions of the schools as giving the last perfection to human abilities are surprised to see men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, or the necessary form of daily transaction; and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education which they find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind.
Samuel Johnson