Quotes from Samuel Johnson

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.

He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.

The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live.

Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being free from flatterers.

He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.