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Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.

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
Wells
Well
Never
Expressed
Wit
Often
Thought

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Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.
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Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant
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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
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To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
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What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country.
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We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.
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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
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None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
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To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
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Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
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Language is the dress of thought.
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The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.
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As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.
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There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.
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Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
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It is our first duty to serve society.
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Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
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The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
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The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.
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