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
Knock the 't' off the 'can't.'
People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
You can never be wise unless you love reading.
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.
Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.