Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.
Samuel JohnsonPresumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.
Samuel JohnsonIt is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Samuel JohnsonAn Italian philosopher said that "time was his estate"; an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry, and generally satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use.
Samuel Johnson