Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives. – Samuel Johnson
I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow. – Samuel Johnson
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle. – Samuel Johnson
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see. – Samuel Johnson
And now it has risen above the massive and lofty tree, and throws its pleasant shadow down upon the earth—pleasant shadow that paces along the meadows, leaving behind a greater brilliancy on tree, and grass, and hedge, and flower than what, for a moment, it had eclipsed. – William Smith, Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good and Evil, 1862