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 is less flogging in our great schools than formerly-but then less is learned there; so what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
Change is not made without inconvenience.
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused
You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
Enlarge my life with multitude of days, In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy.
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.
Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.