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To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Neglect
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No man hates him at whom he can laugh.
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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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If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
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People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
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Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
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In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
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When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.
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To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without, a comparison but it has never been my fortune to find, either in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have, with equal blindness, hated their country.
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Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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Pleasure itself is not a vice
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There is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber.
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The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.
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The violence of war admits no distinction the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
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Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.
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There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
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Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
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I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
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