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I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.

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
Friend
Pleasure
Society
Happiness
Conducive
Subordination
Reciprocal
Governed
Governing

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You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
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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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Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts or slow decline Our social comforts drop away.
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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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Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.
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Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
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Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
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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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No evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong.
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue for it takes the short cut to everything.
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Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
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People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.
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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
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In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.
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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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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
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The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
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How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
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