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The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.

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
Opinion
Gained
May
Toil
Without
Raising
Men
Honour
Merit
Suppresses
Ambition
Persuades
Influence
Mischief
Honest
Flattery

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A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
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Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.
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To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
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Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans we may therefore subject them to government.
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How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
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No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.
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Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
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The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
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His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed.
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It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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Confidence is a plant of slow growth especially in an aged bosom
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue for it takes the short cut to everything.
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Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
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Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
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Hope is necessary in every condition.
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