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
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.
The disturbers of happiness are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise...Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.
We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.
Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.