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
What is good only because it pleases cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.
The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harass him if he does not know how much he escapes.
As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship.
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have missed long enough to want it, we value more when it is regained; but that which has been lost till it is forgotten will be found at last with little gladness, and with still less if a substitute has supplied the place.
How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.
Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own.
Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
The love of fame is a passion natural and universal, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise.
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
It is more reasonable to wish for reputation while it may be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they propose to bestow upon his tomb.
He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
Complaints are vain; we will try to. do better another time. To-morrow and to-morrow. A few designs and a few failures, and the time of designing is past.
Still we love The evil we do, until we suffer it.