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Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.

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
Critics
Mankind
Rest
Interest
Like
Misled
Frequently

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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
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Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
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By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
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Hunger is never delicate they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
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The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
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Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
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The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
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No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
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The first step to greatness is to be honest.
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There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur so many immediate evils are
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The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
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He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
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Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
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Order is a lovely nymph, the child of Beauty and Wisdom her attendants are Comfort, Neatness, and Activity her abode is the valley of happiness: she is always to be found when sought for, and never appears so lovely as when contrasted with her opponent, Disorder.
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No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.
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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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Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
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Words are but the signs of ideas.
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