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“It has always been the practice of mankind to judge of actions by the event. The same attempts, conducted in the same manner, but terminated by different success, produce different judgments: they who attain their wishes never want celebrators of their wisdom and their virtue; and they that miscarry are quickly discovered to have been defective not only in mental but in moral qualities. [...] he that fails in his endeavours after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.”
― Samuel Johnson

“To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practises on others: in conversation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation. To read, write, and converse in due proportions is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Ind the endless variety of tastes and circumstances that diversify mankind, nothing is so superfluous but that someone desires it; or so common but that someone is compelled to buy it.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Moral norms may differ cross-culturally not primarily because of histories of cultural transmission, but because different environments present varied cooperation problems that require different moral rules to solve”
― Harvey Whitehouse, RITUAL ANIMAL:IMITATION & COHESION IN EVOLUTION SOCIAL COMPLEXITY