Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy. – Samuel Johnson
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise. – Samuel Johnson
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets. – Samuel Johnson
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. – Samuel Johnson
We can easily become as much slaves to precaution as we can to fear. Although we can never rivet our fortune so tight as to make it impregnible, we may by our excessive prudence squeeze out of the life that we are guarding so anxiously all the adventurous quality that makes it worth living. – Randolph Silliman Bourne