Samuel Johnson: Doing

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”

“What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.”

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

“Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.”

“He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.”

“We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.”

“men do not suspect faults which they do not commit”

“Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.”

“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.”

“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? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.”

“Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

“I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.”

“As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”

“Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.”

“I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."… There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."”

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.”

“I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.”

“It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.”

“I [Boswell] was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him.
JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and say he was a dunce."”