Samuel Johnson
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"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 Anglicanism/Anglican and committed Tory (British political party)/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 work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography Life of Savage/The Life of Richard Savage, the poems "London (1738 poem)/London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes", and the play Irene (play)/Irene.

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Hope is necessary in every condition.

Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way.

There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Anybody who thinks of going to bed before 12 o'clock is a scoundrel.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.

Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self- interest.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

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.

You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry.

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Grief is a species of idleness.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.