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You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.

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
Flattery
Richardson
Much
Reputation
Quietly
Froth
Every
Fellows
Stream
Disgusts
Always
Contrary
Sail
Oar
Love
Taste
Disgusting
Contented
Think
Says
Streams
Stroke
Thinking
Littles
Longing
Strokes
Little
Johnson
Without
Fellow

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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.
Samuel Johnson
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Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.
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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
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There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
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A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
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I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
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There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
Samuel Johnson
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Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
Samuel Johnson
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To build is to be robbed.
Samuel Johnson
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To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
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Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
Samuel Johnson
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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.
Samuel Johnson
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Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
Samuel Johnson
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
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Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.
Samuel Johnson
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An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
Samuel Johnson