The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.
Samuel JohnsonThere is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.
Samuel JohnsonHe who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.
Samuel JohnsonSir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; - from fear of its being abused.
Samuel JohnsonIt is observed of gold, by an old epigrammatist, that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it is to be in sorrow.
Samuel JohnsonNone but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded by the most specious rhetorician that the lots of life are equal; yet it cannot be denied that every one has his peculiar pleasures and vexations, that external accidents operate variously upon different minds, and that no man can exactly judge from his own sensations what another would feel in the same circumstances.
Samuel Johnson