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Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.

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
Prodigies
Follies
Folly
Fears
Brave
Wise

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Reason elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast space of this mighty fabric yet it comes far short of the real extent of our corporeal being.
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Care that is once enter'd into the breast Will have the whole possession ere it rest.
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Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
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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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As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
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The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.
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Babies do not want to hear about babies they like to be told of giants and castles.
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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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To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
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The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.
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I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.
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I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him but angry he is, no doubt and he is loath to be angry at himself.
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By writing, you learn to write.
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The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
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When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
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No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
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But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.
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