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
We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.
I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.
Employment and hardships prevent melancholy.
The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.
A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.
A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.
To buried merit rise the tardy bust.
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.
To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.
It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.