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
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
The really happy woman is the one who can enjoy the scenery when she has to take a detour. Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but rather a manner of traveling.
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
The present is never a happy state to any human being.
Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause
The age being now past of vagrant excursion and fortuitous hostility, he was under the necessity of travelling from court to court, scorned and repulsed as a wild projector, an idle promiser of kingdoms in the clouds; nor has any part of the world y
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
If I were punished for every pun I shed, there would not be left a puny shed of my punnish head
I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities
It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign
No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them