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
You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.
Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.
So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
In such a government as ours no man is appointed to an office because he is the fittest for it--nor hardly in any other government--because there are so many connections and dependencies to be studied.
In all political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.
He that shall peruse the political pamphlets of any past reign will wonder why they were so eagerly read, or so loudly praised.
There are charms made only for distance admiration.
Where there is no hope there can be no endeavor
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
There are minds which easily sink into submission, that look on grandeur with undistinguishing reverence, and discover no defect where there is elevation of rank and affluence of riches
Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Marriage, Sir, is much more necessary to a man than to a woman; for he is much less able to supply himself with domestick comforts
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.