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
Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little
This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.
There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford
Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland.
Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize
Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
Prudence keeps life safe, but it does not often make it happy.
Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.