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
No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets it on paper, it's not War and Peace anymore; it's comic-book stuff. Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.
Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.
Genius is that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates.
Nothing has so exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves. Those who have been taught to consider the institutions of the schools as giving the last perfection to human abilities are surprised to see men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, or the necessary form of daily transaction; and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education which they find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind.
False taste is always busy to mislead those that are entering upon the regions of learning; and the traveller, uncertain of his way, and forsaken by the sun, will be pleased to see a fainter orb arise on the horizon, that may rescue him from total darkness, though with weak and borrowed lustre.
Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.