B.S. Johnson Quotes

Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.

That what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.

Probably no one will ever know whether it is better to wear a nightcap or not.

The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

Sure! Why should any experts be the arbiters... That's like telling someone they can't be a vegetarian.

Discipline means looking beyond the appearance, beyond that which is visible and acknowledging one Infinite Cause.

As much as we sometimes roll our eyes at the ivory-tower isolation of universities, they continue to serve as remarkable engines of innovation.

We need to play each others instruments.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

Every childhood has its talismans, the sacred objects that look innocuous enough to the outside world, but that trigger an onslaught of vivid memories when the grown child confronts them.

Suspicion is very often a useless pain.

The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning.

Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.

When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed.

I was taking myself very seriously when I was going through life changes. And I realized that I needed to laugh at myself, particularly at my mistakes.

Only when you stop doing what doesn't work, can things get better.

Presumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.

Writing is my refuge. It's where I go. It's where I find that integrity I have.

We don't need someone to show us the ropes. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Deep inside us we know the feelings we need to guide us. Our task is to learn to trust our inner knowing.

Whoever shall review his life, will find that the whole tenor of his conduct has been determined by some accident of no apparent moment.

It's important to give back to people.

A comeback in gymnastics is almost impossible in itself.

After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.

A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves.

People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.

People put too much emphasis on looks.

The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.

It feels real good to look at some of the guys who have played before me, then come in and break a record. But records are made to be broken.

In matters of business, no woman stops at integrity.

The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.

My coach, Liang Chow, had one rule while I was training for the 2008 Olympics: no skiing. I could do anything I wanted outside the gym, he said, except ski.

A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company

I had a constant fear, a constant little doubt in my mind: 'OK, I'm getting ready to do my standing back full on beam and I might re-tear my ACL.'

I have a healthy lifestyle, but there's nothing you can really do to prevent from rolling an ankle or something like that.

Gymnastics is so complex.

I fell in love with gymnastics. I love what I do now. I work with people that I love to be around. Success comes from that.

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

"Uisce Beatha" is a compounded distilled spirit being drawn on aromatics, and the Irish sort is particularly distinguished for its pleasant and mild flavour.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

Catch, then, oh! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short summer-man a flower; He dies-alas! how soon he dies!

Don't get too caught up in making money or having a job, get excited about the fact that you can design your life.

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.

We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it.

Courtesy and good-humour are often found with little real worth.

Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.