It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel JohnsonPraise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
Samuel JohnsonThe true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
Samuel JohnsonHealth is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
Samuel JohnsonScarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.
Samuel JohnsonExercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
Samuel Johnson