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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

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
Disputable
Pretensions
Pretension
Vanity
Hearts
Fame
Heart
Always

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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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It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
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The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
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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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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
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I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
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Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
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A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
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All envy is proportionate to desire we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us.
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The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
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When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford.
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The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
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Games are good or bad as to their nature all may be perverted.
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I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.
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