"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected."

Rasselas. Chap. xii.

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill."

Rasselas. Chap. xii.

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force."

Rasselas. Chap. xiii.

"I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."

Rasselas. Chap. xvi.

"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."

Rasselas. Chap. xvi.

"The first years of man must make provision for the last."

Rasselas. Chap. xvii.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept."

Rasselas. Chap. xxx.

"The endearing elegance of female friendship."

Rasselas. Chap. xlvi.

"I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."

Preface to his Dictionary.

"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison."

Life of Addison.

"To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example."

Life of Milton.

"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."

Life of Milton.

"His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

Life of Edmund Smith (alluding to the death of Garrick).

"That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

Journey to the Western Islands: Inch Kenneth.

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

The Idler. No. 57.

"What is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed."

The Idler. No. 74.

"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. i. Chap. vii. 1743.

"Wretched un-idea'd girls."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. i. Chap. x. 1752.

"This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.

"Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?"

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.

"I am glad that he thanks God for anything."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.

"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."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.

"Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. iii. 1759.

"Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.

"The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.

"If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.

"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. vi. 1763.

"Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.

"Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.

"This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.

"A very unclubable man."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix. 1764.

"I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. iii. 1769.

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. iv.

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. v. 1770.

"I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.

"A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.

"A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iv. Chap. ii. 1773.

"Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iv. Chap. ii. 1773.

"Was ever poet so trusted before?"

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. vi. 1774.

"Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. vi. 1775.

"A man will turn over half a library to make one book."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. viii. 1775.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.

"Hell is paved with good intentions."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.

"Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.

"I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. i. 1775.

"In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath."

Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. i. 1775.