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
Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.
This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd
Sir, I have two cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; - one, that I have lost all the names, - the other, that I have spent all the money
The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.
He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others
Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and, therefore, few only can judge how nearly they are copied.
Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to you previous self.
There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman in marriage.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.