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I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

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
Melancholy
Mad
Least
Father
Made
Life
Vile
Inherited
Sober

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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.
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The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
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All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told and the adage is verified in your place and my favour but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us wiser.
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Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
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It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
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We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.
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Reflect that life, like every other blessing, Derives its value from its use alone.
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Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
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No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
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Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.
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Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality they discourse like angels, but they live like men.
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