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
Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and, therefore, few only can judge how nearly they are copied.
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.
In the most general applause discordant voices will always be heard
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.
The folly of allowing ourselves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped is one of the general weaknesses which, in spite of the instruction of moralists, and the remonstrance of reason, prevail to a greater or less degree in every mind
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.
Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity (in a library), most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered