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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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He who endeavors to please must appear pleased.
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Was ever poet so trusted before?
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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
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Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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All envy is proportionate to desire we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us.
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It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God whether God is just whether this life is the only state of existence.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
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Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
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All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.
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In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, What is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.
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The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
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A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.
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Gayety is to good-humor as perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits the other recreates and revives them.
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Self-love is a busy prompter.
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I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.
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To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.
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Babies do not want to hear about babies they like to be told of giants and castles.
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There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur so many immediate evils are
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