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
This doctrine (of ruling passions) is in itself pernicious as well as false: its tendency is to produce the belief of a kind of moral predestination, or overruling principle which cannot be resisted; he that admits it, is prepared to comply with ever
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize him and thus force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.
We may examine, indeed, but we never can decide, because our faculties are unequal to the subject: we see a little, and form an opinion; we see more, and change it
Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Particulars are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed.
I gleaned jests at home from obsolete farces.
If what appears little be universally despised, nothing greater can be attained; for all that is great was at first little, and rose to its present bulk by gradual accessions and accumulated labours
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty