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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

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
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Delightful
Thrive
Tyranny
Minds
Mind

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Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
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If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.
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Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
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A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
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I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
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The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.
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I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.
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Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
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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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Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
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We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.
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The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
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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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I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
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Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
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Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
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No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
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The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.
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A vow is a snare for sin
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