Samuel Johnson Quotes

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

I think that, at the end of the day, I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it.

Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind.

What is a demanding pleasure that demands the use of ones mind! Not in the sense of problem solving, but in the sense of exercising discrimination, judgment, awareness.

When anything is easy, it becomes very monotonous for me. But, if I can find something that is really going to take all of my body and all of my mind to really even come close to pulling off, that sounds like fun.

The man who doesn’t make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life.

What exercise is to the body, employment is to the mind and morals.

It's never come easy for me. I don't think my mind allows me to rest ever. I have, I think, a chip on my shoulder, and some deep scars that I don't think were healed.

Present sufferings seem far greater to men than those they merely dread.

The need for certainty is the greatest disease the Mind faces

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us

The world is not against you, but the world is a place where bad things happen. It's just true. Airlines crash, people do evil things. A lot of bad things happen and it causes pain.

The pain of the mind is worse than the pain of the body.

If you have an active mind, it always helps. You know, people who don't do crosswords, their minds fall asleep. That's why I do them-my mind is always working. One day my brain is going to explode through the top of my head.

Today I had a strange warning. I felt the wind of insanity brush my mind.

The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anthology in their heads so that, while seated on the lavatory, waiting in doctors' surgeries, on stationary trains or watching interviews with politicians, they may have something interesting to think about.

Weak minds may be injured by novel-reading; but sensible people find both amusement and instruction therein.

It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness

I would call an intellectual one whose instrument of work - his mind - is also his major source of pleasure; a man whose entertainment is his intelligence.

It is always much easier, I have discovered, to make people cry or gasp than to make them think.

My lowest points was getting injured and pulling out of fights.

Things like reading a book or learning a language, or taking a walk - they're not stimulating. Your mind has to sort of learn how to deal with that kind of stimulation on its own. So that's a very important form of adversity.

Positive self-esteem operates as, in effect, the immune system of the consciousness, providing resistance, strength, and a capacity for regeneration. When self-esteem is low, our resilience in the face of life's adversities is diminished. We crumble before vicissitudes that a healthier sense of self could vanquish. We tend to be more influenced by the desire to avoid pain than to experience joy. Negatives have more power over us than positives.

To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labor.

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person