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To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

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
Innocence
Granted
Tongue
Invariable
Virtue
Exemption
Eye
Prerogative
Great
Suspect
Suspects
Dread

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Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible.
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He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
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I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
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When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.
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Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
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There is no idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business, and by making the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation, and hurries him rapidly from place to place.
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Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
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Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
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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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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
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Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
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Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
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I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
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Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.
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I will be conquered I will not capitulate.
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There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
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