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
Pleasure itself is not a vice
None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.
Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.
Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
It is, however, not necessary, that a man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown before; he may be sufficiently useful, by only diversifying the surface of knowledge, and luring the mind by a new appearance to a second view of those beauties which it had passed over inattentively before.
The authors that in any nation last from age to age are very few, because there are very few that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or produce some temporary conveniency.
All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.