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
There are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.
A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.
Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.
No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
Misfortunes should always be expected.
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.