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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

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
Days
Attain
Wish
Nights
Night
Volume
Give
Wishes
Addison
Must
Whoever
Ostentatious
Giving
Familiar
Volumes
English
Coarse
Style
Elegant

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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
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A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.
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Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
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No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
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I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
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When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
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In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.
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A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
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They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty.
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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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Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience you will find it a calamity.
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Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.
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We often need reminding even if we do not often need educating.
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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
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A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.
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We go from anticipation to anticipation, not from satisfaction to satisfaction.
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Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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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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People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
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