β
Have you ever noticed how βWhat the hellβ is always the right decision to make?
β
β
Terry Johnson (Insignificance)
β
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (Works of Samuel Johnson. Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, A Grammar of the English Tongue, Preface to Shakespeare, Lives of the English Poets & more [improved 11/20/2010] (Mobi Collected Works))
β
If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
The earth was overwhelmed with beauty and indifferent to it, and I went with a heart ready to crack for its unbearable loveliness.
β
β
Josephine Winslow Johnson (Now in November)
β
Lift every voice and sing.
β
β
James Weldon Johnson
β
And it's Gryfindor in possession again, as Johnson takes the Quaffleβ Flint alongside her βpoke him in the eye, Angelina βit was a joke, professor, it was a joke...
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
β
My life is like tofuβit's what gets added that makes it interesting.
β
β
Angela Johnson (A Certain October)
β
Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
β
β
Spencer Johnson
β
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.
β
β
Lyndon B. Johnson
β
Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys theyβd just walk around naked at all times.
β
β
Betsey Johnson
β
True friends are those who came into your life, saw the most negative part of you, but are not ready to leave you, no matter how contagious you are to them.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
And itβs Johnson, Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, Iβve been saying it for years but she still wonβt go out with me β'
'JORDAN!' yelled Professor McGonagall.
'Just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest β
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
β
Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
β
β
Wendell Johnson
β
To be in your children's memories tomorrow,
You have to be in their lives today.
β
β
Barbara Johnson
β
Life moves on and so should we
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
Someone who smiles too much with you can sometime frown too much with you at your back.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
What would you do if you weren't afraid?
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.
β
β
Maureen Johnson
β
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
β
β
Jimmy Johnson
β
It is better to lock up your heart with a merciless padlock, than to fall in love with someone who doesn't know what they mean to you.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
To be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
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.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides)
β
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (Works of Samuel Johnson. Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, A Grammar of the English Tongue, Preface to Shakespeare, Lives of the English Poets & more [improved 11/20/2010] (Mobi Collected Works))
β
Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.
β
β
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President)
β
People will walk in and walk out of your life, but the one whose footstep made a long lasting impression is the one you should never allow to walk out.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II)
β
True love is not a hide and seek game: in true love, both lovers seek each other.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Fear canβt hurt you,β she said. βWhen it washes over you, give it no power. Itβs a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1))
β
But you're so busy changing the world
Just one smile can change all of mine
β
β
Jack Johnson
β
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The Rambler)
β
What you are afraid of is never as bad as what you imagine. The fear you let build up in your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists.
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 3)
β
My congratulations to you, sir. 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.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II)
β
I may have been a complete lunatic, but I was a complete lunatic with manners.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
β
Debbie had to get up and slice me a thick piece of cake before she could answer. And I do mean thick. Harry Potter volume seven thick. I could have knocked out a burglar with this piece of cake. Once I tasted it, though, it seemed just the right size.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow)
β
Stay away from lazy parasites, who perch on you just to satisfy their needs, they do not come to alleviate your burdens, hence, their mission is to distract, detract and extract, and make you live in abject poverty.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Those who pray for your downfall are concentrating negative thoughts towards you, without taking cognisance of the slippery ground in which they are standing, which could lead to their downfall.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
β
β
Lyndon B. Johnson
β
One person's crazy is another person's sane, I guess.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
β
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
Always remember that you were once alone, and the crowd you see in your life today are just as unecessary as when you were alone.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
It's always easier to say good-bye when you know it's just a prelude to hello.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Last Little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope, #2))
β
Don't pretend to be what you're not, instead, pretend to what you want to be, it is not pretence, it is a journey to self realization.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Claim whatever you want. Say you only want a happy family or a successful career or a big house. I say: no, that's not what you want. You'll settle for those things, but you really want a monkey that does your evil bidding. Pullman is a genius just for this.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (World of the Golden Compass: The Otherworldly Ride Continues [Paperback])
β
A good traveller is one who knows how to travel with the mind.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes)
β
You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe out what came before.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Last Little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope, #2))
β
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
I don't fancy colors of the face, I'm always attracted to colors of the brain.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia)
β
See what you're doing wrong, laugh at it, change and do better.
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
In life, there are no mistakes, only lessons.
β
β
Vic Johnson (Day by Day with James Allen)
β
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The Rambler)
β
Hell is paved with good intentions.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2)
β
The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese.
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
When you stop being afraid you feel good
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
Don't destroy yourself by allowing negative people add gibberish and debris to your character, reputation, and aspirations. Keep all dreams alive but discreet, so that those with unhealthy tongues won't have any other option than to infest themselves with their own diseases.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
If everyone helps to hold up the sky, then one person does not become tired.
β
β
Askhari Johnson Hodari (Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs)
β
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.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
When people complain of your complexity, they fail to remember that they made fun of your simplicity.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
We've got everything we need right here, and everything we need is enough.
β
β
Jack Johnson
β
And if we get caught, I will claim I made you go. At gunpoint. I am American. People will assume I'm armed.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1))
β
If you do not change, you can become extinct !
β
β
Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life...)
β
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2)
β
Sometimes your dearest friend whom you reveal most of your secrets to becomes so deadly and unfriendly without knowing that they were not really your friend.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
You have to take things as they are, not how you hear they're supposed to be.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Truly, Devious (Truly Devious, #1))
β
Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance.
β
β
Lyndon B. Johnson
β
The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.
β
β
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
β
Tired, but not the kind of tired that sleep fixes.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
β
Change happens when the pain of holding on becomes greater than the fear of letting go.
β
β
Spencer Johnson
β
Chance favors the connected mind.
β
β
Steven Johnson (Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation)
β
The stupidity of gossips is that they become frightened when they see your face, and a little word from your mouth makes them vibrate like an electrocuted criminal.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Where her books were, she was. Get the books right and the rest will follow. Now she could address the rest of the room.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1))
β
She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she'd done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.
β
β
Denis Johnson
β
I have no phobias. Phobias are irrational. My fears are rational and CAREFULLY CULTIVATED, like roses.
β
β
Maureen Johnson
β
The only person worthy of your love is not one who overstayed in the relationship without a single change, but one, who appeared like an angel, and used a single day to make a million change.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
β
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
Sometimes we have to behave indifferent towards people who proclaim their love to us, just to see if they are really different.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson
β
Keep calm and carry on.
Also, stay in and hide because the Ripper is coming.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1))
β
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.
β
β
Samuel Johnson (Boswell's Life of Johnson, Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of a Journal Into North Wales, 1904 (Classic Reprint))
β
But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can't live with what they've done.
β
β
Adam Johnson (The Orphan Master's Son)
β
I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?
β
β
Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes (Little Blue Envelope, #1))
β
I knew every raindrop by its name.
β
β
Denis Johnson (Jesus' Son)
β
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
β
β
Samuel Johnson
β
In response to be asked about Boris Johnson becoming UK Prime Minister...
"I'm delighted. As the UK continues to plunge ever faster into a future akin to a dystopian novel I'll never run out of material to write more books. Although now that reality is more bizarre than fiction maybe plot-lines will need to be more ambitious. Perhaps a book where Boris Johnson is really an accidental sentient snafu of Trump's scrotum lint. Kind of a sequel to the Bush-Blair story. I see musical rights being drawn up as we speak.
β
β
R.D. Ronald
β
I decided to deflect her attitude by giving a long, Southern answer. I come from people who know how to draw things out. Annoy a Southerner, and we will drain away the moments of your life with our slow, detailed replies until you are nothing but a husk of your former self and that much closer to death.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1))
β
But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.
β
β
Robert A. Caro (The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4))
β
I have to ask. Why do you like me?β
He shifted away from me then, his brows pulled together making him look even cuter, if that was possible. βI donβt understand the question.β His hands were squeezing mine tightly as he looked down at them. βYouβre my Lilly. Youβve always been my Lilly.
β
β
Amber L. Johnson (Puddle Jumping (Puddle Jumping, #1))
β
Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]
1. Homer β Iliad, Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus β Tragedies
4. Sophocles β Tragedies
5. Herodotus β Histories
6. Euripides β Tragedies
7. Thucydides β History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates β Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes β Comedies
10. Plato β Dialogues
11. Aristotle β Works
12. Epicurus β Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
13. Euclid β Elements
14. Archimedes β Works
15. Apollonius of Perga β Conic Sections
16. Cicero β Works
17. Lucretius β On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil β Works
19. Horace β Works
20. Livy β History of Rome
21. Ovid β Works
22. Plutarch β Parallel Lives; Moralia
23. Tacitus β Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
24. Nicomachus of Gerasa β Introduction to Arithmetic
25. Epictetus β Discourses; Encheiridion
26. Ptolemy β Almagest
27. Lucian β Works
28. Marcus Aurelius β Meditations
29. Galen β On the Natural Faculties
30. The New Testament
31. Plotinus β The Enneads
32. St. Augustine β On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
33. The Song of Roland
34. The Nibelungenlied
35. The Saga of Burnt NjΓ‘l
36. St. Thomas Aquinas β Summa Theologica
37. Dante Alighieri β The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
38. Geoffrey Chaucer β Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
39. Leonardo da Vinci β Notebooks
40. NiccolΓ² Machiavelli β The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
41. Desiderius Erasmus β The Praise of Folly
42. Nicolaus Copernicus β On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
43. Thomas More β Utopia
44. Martin Luther β Table Talk; Three Treatises
45. FranΓ§ois Rabelais β Gargantua and Pantagruel
46. John Calvin β Institutes of the Christian Religion
47. Michel de Montaigne β Essays
48. William Gilbert β On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
49. Miguel de Cervantes β Don Quixote
50. Edmund Spenser β Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
51. Francis Bacon β Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
52. William Shakespeare β Poetry and Plays
53. Galileo Galilei β Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
54. Johannes Kepler β Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
55. William Harvey β On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
56. Thomas Hobbes β Leviathan
57. RenΓ© Descartes β Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
58. John Milton β Works
59. MoliΓ¨re β Comedies
60. Blaise Pascal β The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
61. Christiaan Huygens β Treatise on Light
62. Benedict de Spinoza β Ethics
63. John Locke β Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education
64. Jean Baptiste Racine β Tragedies
65. Isaac Newton β Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz β Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology
67. Daniel Defoe β Robinson Crusoe
68. Jonathan Swift β A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
69. William Congreve β The Way of the World
70. George Berkeley β Principles of Human Knowledge
71. Alexander Pope β Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu β Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
73. Voltaire β Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
74. Henry Fielding β Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
75. Samuel Johnson β The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
β
β
Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading)
β
Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Donβt try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on.
Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals.
Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelersβ checks, etc. Iβll take care of all that.
Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You canβt call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged.
Thatβs all you need to know for now.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes (Little Blue Envelope, #1))
β
Maybe you've never fallen into a frozen stream. Here's what happens.
1. It is cold. So cold that the Department of Temperature Acknowledgment and Regulation in you brain gets the readings and says, "I can't deal with this. I'm out of here." It puts up the OUT TO LUNCH sign and passes all responsibility to the...
2. Department of Pain and the Processing Thereof, which gets all this gobbledygook from the temperature department that it can't understand. "This is so not our job," it says. So it just starts hitting random buttons, filling you with strange and unpleasant sensations, and calls the...
3. Office of Confusion and Panic, where there is always someone ready to hop on the phone the moment it rings. This office is at least willing to take some action. The Office of Confusion and Panic loves hitting buttons.
β
β
Maureen Johnson (Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances)
β
How are you coming with your home library? Do you need some good ammunition on why it's so important to read? The last time I checked the statistics...I think they indicated that only four percent of the adults in this country have bought a book within the past year. That's dangerous. It's extremely important that we keep ourselves in the top five or six percent.
In one of the Monthly Letters from the Royal Bank of Canada it was pointed out that reading good books is not something to be indulged in as a luxury. It is a necessity for anyone who intends to give his life and work a touch of quality. The most real wealth is not what we put into our piggy banks but what we develop in our heads. Books instruct us without anger, threats and harsh discipline. They do not sneer at our ignorance or grumble at our mistakes. They ask only that we spend some time in the company of greatness so that we may absorb some of its attributes.
You do not read a book for the book's sake, but for your own.
You may read because in your high-pressure life, studded with problems and emergencies, you need periods of relief and yet recognize that peace of mind does not mean numbness of mind.
You may read because you never had an opportunity to go to college, and books give you a chance to get something you missed. You may read because your job is routine, and books give you a feeling of depth in life.
You may read because you did go to college.
You may read because you see social, economic and philosophical problems which need solution, and you believe that the best thinking of all past ages may be useful in your age, too.
You may read because you are tired of the shallowness of contemporary life, bored by the current conversational commonplaces, and wearied of shop talk and gossip about people.
Whatever your dominant personal reason, you will find that reading gives knowledge, creative power, satisfaction and relaxation. It cultivates your mind by calling its faculties into exercise.
Books are a source of pleasure - the purest and the most lasting. They enhance your sensation of the interestingness of life. Reading them is not a violent pleasure like the gross enjoyment of an uncultivated mind, but a subtle delight.
Reading dispels prejudices which hem our minds within narrow spaces. One of the things that will surprise you as you read good books from all over the world and from all times of man is that human nature is much the same today as it has been ever since writing began to tell us about it.
Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both.
β
β
Earl Nightingale
β
-We need more love, to supersede hatred, -We need more strength,
to resist our weaknesses,
-We need more inspiration,
to lighten up our innermind.
-We need more learning,
to erase our ignorance,
-We need more wisdom,
to live longer and happier,
-We need more truths, to suppress deceptions,
-We need more health,
to enjoy our wealth,
-We need more peace, to stay in harmony with our brethren
-We need more smiles,
to brighten up our day,
-We need more hero's, and not zero's,
-We need more change of ourselves, to change the lives of others,
-We need more understanding,
to tackle our misunderstanding,
-We need more sympathy,
not apathy,
-We need more forgiveness,
not vengeance,
-We need more humility to be lifted up,
-We need more patience and not undue eagerness,
-We need more focus, to avoid distraction,
-We need more optimism,
not pessimism
-We need more justice,
not injustice,
-We need more facts, not fiction,
-We need more education,
to curb illiteracy,
-We need more skills, not incompetence,
-We need more challenges,
to make attempts,
-We need more talents,
to create the extraordinary,
-We need more helping hands,
not stingy folks,
-We need more efforts,
not laziness,
-We need more jokes, to forget our worries, -We need more spirituality,
not mean religion,
-We need more freedom,
not enslavement,
-We need more peacemakers,
not revolutionaries...with these, we create an heaven on earth.
β
β
Michael Bassey Johnson