Sir, it is no matter what you teach [children] first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time, your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your children, another boy has learnt them both.
Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1791, vol. 1, p. 245
[W]hen a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1791, vol. 2, p. 152
What must be done, Sir, will be done.
Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1791, vol. 1, p. 108
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.
Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1791, vol. 1, p. 282