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
Samuel Johnson quotes about
To embarrass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of 21, little did I suspect that I should be at 49, what I now am.
What we ever hope to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.
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
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness, which this world affords.
To keep your secret is wisdom; to expect others to keep it is folly.
He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.