Nothing concentrates one's mind so much as the realization that one is going to be hanged in the morning!
Samuel JohnsonAll the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
Samuel JohnsonWhatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.
Samuel Johnson