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Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Must
Habit
Caution
Influence
Preserve
Wisdom
Preserves
Happiness
Habits
Freedom
Conquer
Evil
Subject
Timely
Power
Neither
Conquered
May
Subjects
Attained

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As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.
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Love is only one of many passions.
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Confidence is a plant of slow growth especially in an aged bosom
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.
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An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
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Idleness and timidity often despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavors, by showing what has already been performed.
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Languages are the pedigree of nations.
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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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Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
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Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.
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A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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