Every man has, some time in his life, an ambition to be a wag. (Samuel Johnson)
Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him. (Samuel Johnson)
Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return. (Samuel Johnson)
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair. (Samuel Johnson)
So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side. (Samuel Johnson)
I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. (Samuel Johnson)
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind. (Samuel Johnson)
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. (Samuel Johnson)
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem. (Samuel Johnson)
Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford. (Samuel Johnson)
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar and many fold in their passage while they lie waiting for the gale.'' (Samuel Johnson)
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. (Samuel Johnson)
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. (Samuel Johnson)
Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better. (Samuel Johnson)
God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I. (Samuel Johnson)