Quotes by Dr. Samuel Johnson
(1707 - 1784)

Category	Quote	E-Mail this quote
Abstinence	Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.
Acting	He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. - (Drama Critic)
Acting	I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
Acting	Method acting? There are quite a few methods. Mine involves a lot of talent, a glass and some cracked ice.
Activism	I knew I'd been living in Berkeley too long when I saw a sign that said 'Free Firewood,' and my first thought was 'Who is Firewood and what has he done?' - (English painter, teacher, art critic)
Actors	If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.
Actors	When I asked him, "Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does, if you saw a ghost?" He answered, "I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost."
Actors	Speaks of respeting actors, “What, Sir, (respect) a fellow who claps a lump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries 'I am Richard the Third'? Nay, Sir, a ballad singer is a higher man, for he does two things; he repeats and he sings: there is both recitation and musick in his performance: the player only recites."
Actors	Actors are crap.
Adversary Intelligence Systems	The most adversarial adversary intelligence system is always one's own.
Advice	Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.
Agent-in-place	Agent-in-place? Your place or mine?
Aging	There is still no cure for the common birthday. - (astronaut)
Alimony	You never realize how short a month is until you pay alimony
America	I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
America	Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
America	How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
America	Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging. - (on Americans)
America	America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization.
Analysis	Secret 205. One intelligence analyst's Analytic Outreach is another's nonconsensual groping.
Animals	A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
Animals	We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.
Architecture	Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
Arguments	Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I don't understand you, Sir;' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.'
Arrogance	I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
Ascending Spiral	Everybody line up and form an ascending spiral.
Atheistism	An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
Atomic theory	We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system or annihilate one already in existence, as to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen. - (early atomic theorist)
Aught	We ought not let aught be for naught.
Beer	The United States contains 5% of the world's population, yet uses 24% of the world's energy. On the other hand, the US produces 20% of the world's beer, but consumes only 12.8%. So it's not like the US isn't sharing.
Being Me	Nobody knows how it feels to be me, except it.
Big Picture	Everybody wants to see the big picture. Nobody wants to smell the big scratch-and-sniff.
Books	Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and puts down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
Bores	He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.
Bores	A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.
Brides	Brides aren't happy -- they are just triumphant
Businessmen	My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now.
Capitalism	Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
Censorship	Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search, or wider survey than others, and detected faults and follies which escape vulgar observation.
Censorship	Redact, or be redacted.
Children	You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.
Children	Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. - (author, poet, artist)
Children	Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.
CIA	Underhead reconnaissance is the greater INT by far.
Cleanliness	My wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber: a clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling.
Common Ground	When you reach common ground, check to make sure you're not sinking.
Computers	The difference between friends and computers: friends ask first if they can hang and crash.
Conceit	The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
Critics	Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidible at very small expense.
Critics	There are some men born only to suck out the poison of books.
Critics	Critics are a dissembling, dishonest, contempable race of men. Asking a working writer what he thinks of critics is like asking a lampost what it feels about dogs.
Critics	Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.
Critisism	When the people criticised and answered his pamphlets, papers, etc. "Why now, these fellows are only advertising my book (he would say); it is surely better a man should be abused than forgotten."
Critisism	You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
Critism	Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Cultural Appropriation	I'd criticize cultural appropriation, but that would require my appropriating a culture of criticism.
Curiosity	Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Data Mining	The analytical challenges of data mining are manageable, provided proper safety equipment is worn.
Death	A very ignorant young fellow, who had plagued us all for nine or ten months, died at last consumptive: ""I think (said Mr. Johnson when he heard the news), I am afraid, I should have been more concerned for the death of the dog; but -------- (hesitating a while) I am not wrong now in all this, for the dog acted up to his character on every occasion that we know; but that dunce of a fellow helped forward the general disgrace of humanity.
Death	Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Death	For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
Death	Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.
Debt	A man properly must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized.
Democracy	Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is blissfully ignorant.
Democracy	Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.
Democracy	Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide. - (US President #2)
Details	William Feather said 'Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details,' though he didn't offer specifics.
Drinking	There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
Drinking	Boswell: 'You must allow me, Sir, at least that it produces truth; in vino veritas, you know, Sir--' 'That (replied Mr. Johnson) would be useless to a man who knew he was not a liar when he was sober.'
Earth	The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.
Economics	Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
Editing	Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Education	There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end, they lose at the other.
Education	Remember always that the parents buy the books, and that the children never read them.
Education	You teach your daugthers the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Enemies	Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
England	It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.
Ethics	If he does really think there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.
Ethics	I am partial to no vested interests. Give me lingeried interests every time.
Everyday life	Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
Executives	An executive is a person who always decides; sometimes he decides correctly, but he always decides.
Exercise	Exercise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Faction	Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
Fairness	If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
Family	Thousands and tens of thousands flourish in youth and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, and whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them.
Fatherhood	It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.
Fleetingness	Fleetingness is here to stay.
Florida	As a resident alien in the U.S. I wasn't allowed to vote, but since I was living in Florida it didn't seem to matter.
Food	If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.
Food	[Piozzi] asked him, if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner? 'So often (replied he), that at last she called to me, and said, Nay, hold Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few moments you will protest not eatable.
Food	A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things.
Food	This was a good dinner enough, to be sure: but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Food	Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
Food	A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
Food	Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
Food	Our relationship with food in large part defines us – or at least it defines our large parts.
Fools	There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - (Science Fiction Author)
Forest	God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. - (Yosemite naturalist)
France	In England, any man who wears a sword and a powdered wig is ashamed to be illiterate. I believe it is not so in France.
France	They have few sentiments, but they express them neatly; they have little meat, too, but they dress it well.
France	What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country.
Freedom	All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Freedom	Sir, we know our will is free, and there's an end on it.
Freedom	The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom. - (American First Lady)
Future	The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.
Gender Fluidity	According to science, gender fluidity, if it's hot enough, can transform into a gender gas!
Generosity	I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependent, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron.
God	God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
God	If God plays dice with the universe, who's the house?
Golf	A game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
Goodness	The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've go to be good.
Goodness	The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Government	You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
Government	I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of Government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man.
Government	How small, of all that human hearts endure, that part which kings or laws can cause or cure.
Grammar	No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them.
Greatness	I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. - (welcoming Nobel Prize winners to the White House)
Greatness	Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts -- the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art.
Greed	Land and money — the two things that drive men mad.
Grief	Grief is a species of idleness.
Hard Targets	The hardness is the target.
Hate	Men hate more steadily than they love; and if I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Hell	The road to hell is paved with good intentions
History	It must have been fun being the first humans, setting all those new world records every day.
Humanity	The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy - (author, Nobelist)
Humor	A pun is the lowest form of wit, It does not tax the brain a bit; One merely takes a word that's plain And picks one out that sounds the same.
Hypocrocy	No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Idealism	Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
Imitation	No man ever yet became great by imitation.
Immortality	If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Indecision	Decisiveness may be flexible – indecision, never.
Insults	Johnson:'...She is like the Amazons of old; she must be courted by the sword. But I have not been severe to her.' Boswell: 'Yes, Sir, you have made her ridiculous.' Johnson: 'That was already done, Sir. To endeavour to make her ridiculous, is like blacking the chimney.'
Insults	He attacked Gray, calling him' a dull fellow.' Boswell: I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry.' Johnson: 'Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet.'
Insults	Mrs. Montague, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned; Reynolds: "I think that essay does her honour." Johnson: "Yes, Sir, it does her honour, but it would do nobody else honour. I have indeed, not read it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery."
insults	A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is still but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Insults	Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.
Insutls	She doesn't need a steak knife. Rona cuts her food with her tongue. - (on Rona Barrett)
Intelligence Tests	An intelligence test measures one's ability to get out of having to take it.
Internet	Just kidding – actually I *am* a robot.
Ireland	The Irish are a fair people; -- they never speak well of one another.
It's All Good	It's all good, where 'it' ∈ {N | N = nonlethal}.
Jamaica	Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead -- 'He will not, whither he is now gone (said Johnson), find much difference, I believe, either in the climate or the company.'
Justice	Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends ... every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. - (last speech to the court, 1859)
Justice	Separate justice and love, and what do you get? A corpse. - (theologian)
KISS Principle	Whoever put the second S in the KISS principle added 33% needless complexity.
Knowledge	If it rained knowledge, I'd hold out my hand; but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it.
Law of Scary Laws	The Law of Scary Laws: For any behavior, policy or belief X, one's personal disapproval of X can be expressed as a scary law of the form: 'Those who fail to stand up to X will sooner or later find themselves at X's feet.'
Lawyers	He did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'.
Lexographer	Lexicographer:.a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the significations of words.
Liars	Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies about everybody.
Liberty	A Constitution of Government once changed from freedom can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. - (2nd US President)
Libraries	No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowdedon every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue
Life	Life is what happens while you are making other plans
Life	There is so much trouble in coming into the world, and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that it hardly seems worth while to be here at all.
Life	Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy growth.
life	Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.
London	Grubstreet: Originally the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems ;whence any mean production is called grubstreet.
Lost	We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.
Love	It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared.
Love	Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.
Lying	We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Lying	It can't be *pathological* lying if it preserves your health.
Madness	If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards
Madness	Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
Man	No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish.
Man	Were one half of mankind brave and the other half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave they would lead an uneasy life; all would be continually fighting. But being all cowards we go on very well.
Mankind	As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man 'a good man', upon easier terms than I was formerly.
Mankind	If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified insilencing mankind.
Marriage	It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.
Marriage	I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter.
Marriage	Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Marriage	The triumph of hope over experience.
Martyrdom	It is often pleasant to stone a martyr, no matter how much we admire him.
Maskirovka	Secret 0.831. Any Russian definition of maskirovka is an instance of it.
Materialism	Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
Meaningfulness	The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.
Meetings	Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
Men	He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Men	A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
mining	The wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful, but the only grand marvel is the energy expended in its development. - (on mining)
Misc.	Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
Misery	There is nothing, Sir, too little for a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible
Money	There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Money	Anything worth doing is worth doing for money
Morality	Go into the street and give one man a lecture on morality and another a shilling, and see which will repect you most.
Morality	Upon our nation's moral fiber depends our nation's moral regularity.
Motivational	It takes less time to kill all the people who say 'It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong' than to explain why you only wounded some of them.
Music	Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
National Security	National security threat (n.) National security.
Nature	I practice a back-to-nature lifestyle. The farther behind my back nature is, the better.
Nonsense	It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.
Nothing	To do nothing is in everyone's power.
Obfuscation	A man always has two reasons for what he does -- a good one, and the real one.
Obscurity	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.
Occupy Wall Street	The Occupy Wall Street movement faltered when activists realized that traders were quite busy already.
Opportunity	Don't say 'problem,' say 'opportunity' – it's way scarier.
Over the Top	Better over the top than under the bottom.
Parents	That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what motive can make a father cruel?
Parents	The regal and parental tyrant differ only in the extent of their dominions.
Parents	Parents are by no means exempt from the intoxication of dominion.
Parents	Poor people's children, dear Lady never respect them: I did not respect my own mother, though I loved her: and one day, when in anger she called me a puppy, I asked her if she knew what they call a puppy's mother.
Patriotism	Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Patrons	To Lord Chesterfield… "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?"
Patrons	Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports withinsolence, and is paid with flattery.
Paying attention	It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest. - (naturalist)
Pensions	Pension: An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Pioty	Campbell is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that he has good principles.
Pleasure	I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.
Poetry	Johnson was asked whether Derrick or Smart was the best poet?' Johnson at once felt himself rouzed; and answered, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.'
Poets	You don't have to suffer to be a poet; adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.
Policymakers	A policymaker is a National Intelligence Estimate's way of making another National Intelligence Estimate.
Politics	He that changes his party by his humour is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself rather than truth.
Politics	Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatalbe.
Politics	Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
Politics	He is a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. Like rotten mackeral by moonlight, he shines and stinks. - (late 18th-early 19th Century American Politician and Philosopher)
Politics	There is no city in the United States in which I get a warmer welcome and fewer votes than Columbus, Ohio.
Politics	In politics the middle way is none at all.
Politics	The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body. - (2nd U.S. President)
Politics	The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss - (Vice-President of the United States)
Possessions	The want of a thing is perplexing enough, but the possession of it is intolerable.
Possessions	Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.
Poverty	There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.
Power	Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.
Power	I googled the quote 'Power means not having to respond.' Nothing happened.
Praise	He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
Property	for he who leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as taking nothing at all. - (Second Treatise of Government)
Quality of life	I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.
Quotations	If an anthology of quotations is a museum of utterances, the most illuminating will tend to be of the Mütter variety.
Reading	I never move my lips when I'm reading. But sometimes what I'm reading moves my lips.
Revolution	Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Rumors	A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
Sacrifice	I am as content to die for God's eternal truth on the scaffold as in any other way.
Safe House	What good is a safe house if the sidewalk's dangerous?
Secret Service	The Papal Swiss Guard is like the US Secret Service, only more conservatively dressed.
Security Clearances	Jesus doesn't have security clearances. Jesus *is* security clearances.
Seeing	Seeing is be leaving.
Self-love	All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood.
Soaring	Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Society	Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Solitude	A world from which solitude is extirpated is a very poor ideal. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature.
Soul	We insist our soul is not for sale – as if the owner would tell us.
Speech	Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.
Spooksplain	Spooksplain v. To explain a classified topic to someone, and having told them, to be required to kill them.
Stop Me If You	Actually, I haven't heard this one before, but I think I'll go ahead and stop you anyway.
Strangers	It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
Strategy	Secret 29918191. Divide and conquer. Unite and divide.
Stupidity	Stupid people are generally conservative.
Success	Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
Suffering	Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
Suffering	Where there is leisure for fiction there is little grief.
Suffering	The wretched have no compassion.
Suffering	Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
Superiority	When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.
Surveillance	The more everyone knows about what everyone is doing, the more what everyone is doing is about knowing this.
Surveillance	I disagree with what you think, but as long as you don't disable your remote neural oscillation monitoring port, I shall defend to the death your right to think it.
Surviving	Everything is survivable, except survival.
Taxes	The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.
Technology	Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology.
Terrorism	A definition of terrorism presupposes the terrorism of definition.
Theatre	She no more thought of the play out of which her part was taken, than a shoemaker thinks of the skin, out of which the piece of leather, of which he is making a pair of shoes, is cut.
Theology	Three million years from stone to iron weapons, but three thousand years from iron to atomic weapons. Not bad progress that, for a smart ape from Africa. Violence is not the inevitability of human nature but only the normalcy of human civilization. The Christian Bible presents the radicality of a just and nonviolent God repeatedly and relentlessly confronting the normalcy of an unjust and violent civilization. Peace by Victory (Civilization), Peace by Justice (Post-Civilization), or Peace by Death (Anti-Civilization) - It is in the challenge of human evolution that we are called to Post-Civilization, to imagine it, to create it, and to enjoy it on a transfigured earth. - (OD & EMPIRE - Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now)
Thinking	If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.
Troubleshooting	Troubleshooting n. The practice of injecting trouble intravenously, typically performed by trouble addicts.
Trust	Trust me, I know what I'm officially not doing.
U.S. presidency	No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. - (2nd U.S. president)
Unease	I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
USA	People around the world are no longer convinced that we are a just empire. - (referring to the USA)
USA	People around the world are no longer convinced that we are a just empire. {referring to the USA} - (Irish-American biblical scholar)
Useless	In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
Violence	Civilization is based on violence. - (Theologian)
Virtual Reality	Good virtual reality makes you forget you're virtually real.
Virtue	Virtue is not always amiable. - (second President)
War	War is a trade of kings.
War	We always say that victory begets peace, but it never does. - (Roman Catholic theologian)
Washington	Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
Wealth	Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.
Wildlife	In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear's behavior was better than mine. - (Naturalist)
Wildlife	I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show that any one animal was eager for another as much as it was made for itself. - (naturalist)
Wine	Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.
Wisdom	To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
Wit	On Lord Chesterfield….'This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!'
Women	Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
Women	I pitied a friend before him, who had a whining wife that found every thing painful to her, and nothing pleasing -- "He does not know that she whimpers (says Johnson); when a door has creaked for a fortnight together, you may observe -- the master will scarcely give sixpence to get it oiled."
Women	There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
Women	Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Women	Sir, a woman's 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.
Words	Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.
World	The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and in a short time will cease to miss him.
Writing	No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
Wrong Side of the Tracks	The wrong side of the tracks is on top of them.
You Go Your Way	You go your way, and I'll go thine.
Youth	I am always (said he) on the young people's side, when there is a dispute between them and the old ones: for at least you have a chance for virtue till age has withered its very root.

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