Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
Thomas F. Jones, Jr. (1916-1981) American educator
(Attributed)
There was nothing funny about what Christ said and what’s funny really is the fact that Christ said all these really good things about Love Thy Neighbor and everything, and then for the next two thousand years people are killing each other and torturing each other because they can’t quite decide how he said it.
Your organization is not a praying institution. It’s a fighting institution. It’s an educational institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
He knew sometimes some fear can be good. When you are afraid things are going to get worse if you don’t do something, it can prompt you into action. But it is not good when you are so afraid that it keeps you from doing anything.
There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Idler, #48 (17 Mar 1759)
(Source)
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never decieved us.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Idler, #80 (27 Oct 1759)
(Source)
The vanity of being trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for however absurd it may be thought to boast an honor by an act with shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance, and more willingly show their influence, though at the expense of their probity, than glide through life with no other pleasure than the private consciousness of fidelity; which, while it is preserved, must be without praise, except from the single person who tries and knows it.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #13 (1 May 1750)
(Source)
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #48 (1 Sep 1750)
(Source)
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Whereas, Sir, you know courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (7 Apr 1775)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791):Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest.Ambrose Bierce wrote in his Devil's Dictonary, "In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."
All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (14 Apr 1775)
(Source)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (20 Jul 1768)
(Source)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor three hours a day will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ch. 13 (1759)
(Source)
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ch. 26 (1759)
(Source)
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation of how it shall be spent; dleiberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with futility, must, afer long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Letter to James Boswell (21 Aug 1766)
(Source)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
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 (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Adventurer, #111 (27 Nov 1753)
(Source)
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (19 Sep 1777)
(Source)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rules on composition: it produces vigilance rather than elevation, rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often escapes miscarriages but seldom reaches either power or horror. … Prudence keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Idler, #57 (19 May 1759)
(Source)
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #79 (18 Dec 1750)
(Source)
A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author.
(Other Authors and Sources)
S. C. Johnson
Attributed to both Samuel Curtis Johnson, Sr. (1833-1919), businessman and founder of S. C. Johnson Wax, and (more likely) to Stephan C. Johnson, contemporary computer scientist. In the latter case, it is often written as "A successful [software] tool is ..."
Let the national legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for that usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World. Our Constitution recognizes no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances. Let the professors of Christianity recommend their religion by deeds of benevolence, by Christian meekness, by lives of temperance and holiness. Let them combine their efforts to instruct the ignorant, to relieve the widow and the orphan, to promulgate to the world the gospel of their Saviour, recommending its precepts by their habitual example; government will find its legitimate object in protecting them. It cannot oppose them, and they will not need its aid. Their moral influence will then do infinitely more to advance the true interests of religion than any measures they may call on Congress to enact.
Richard Mentor Johnson (1781-1850) US politician, Vice-President (1837-1841)
Report on the Transportation of Mail on Sundays, 20th Congress, 2nd Session (19 Jan 1829)
(Source)
The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.