Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single biographical work in the whole of literature," James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth18 September 1709
Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.
Self-love is a busy prompter.
To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.
More is learned in a public than in a private school, from emulation. There is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one center.
Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
Repentance, however difficult to be practiced, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.
That what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish.
What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.
The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.
Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.