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Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

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
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Idle
Useless
Useful
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Good
Things
Would
Conjecture

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The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
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Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
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Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
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The vicious count their years virtuous, their acts.
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He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.
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It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
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Too much vigor in the beginning of an undertaking often intercepts and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the conduct of a complicated scheme.
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So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
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Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
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No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.
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Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
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As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.
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People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.
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Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.
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Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
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The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
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We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
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