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
Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.
Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.
Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification. This is so evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence that all precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith; a life regulated not by our senses but by our belief; a life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of invisible punishments, and calamities sometimes to be sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards that shall be obtained in another state.
Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
True enjoyments also keep people from vice.
We often look with indifference on the successive parts of something that, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion.
Nobody can be taught faster than he can learn.
Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.
..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.
Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant