Quotes from Dr Samuel Johnson

While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over.

To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.