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
A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.
We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
People in distress never think that you feel enough.
About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.
Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.
Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.
In the motive lies the good or ill.
If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.
Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
Keeping accounts, sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today because you have written down what it cost yesterday.