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
In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age, to act without any measure but interest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue.
This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.
Much mischief is done in the world with very little interest or design.
The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground.
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.
There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.