B.S. Johnson Quotes
As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
To improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach is the great art of life.
We are convinced that happiness is never to be found and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive .
Sir a woman 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.
Oats n.s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people.
Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.
When any fit of gloominess or perversion of mind lays hold upon you make it a rule not to publish it by complaints.
Silence propagates itself and the longer talk has been suspended the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
The world has narrowed to a neighbourhood before it has broadened to a brotherhood.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man because he has both enjoyments.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks is truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Men know that women are an overmatch for them and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth and that things are the sons of heaven.
Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.
When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness, which this world affords.
I found what I was looking for at Langley. This was what a research mathematician did. I went to work every day for 33 years happy. Never did I get up and say I don't want to go to work.
I report to you that our country is challenged at home and abroad: that it is our will that is being tried and not our strength our sense of purpose and not our ability to achieve a better America.