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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.

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
Often
Defeated
Forbear
May
Showing
Timidity
Without
Endeavor
Endeavors
Overcome
Faint
Overcoming
Performed
Despair
Idleness
Already
Attempts
Fear
Promote

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We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.
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A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
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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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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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There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey.
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An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.
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Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
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The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.
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Wretched un-idea'd girls.
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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
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Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
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Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
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Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
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As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
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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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To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others
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We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.
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Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
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All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
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But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.
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