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
We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.
It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.
Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.