Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 1775

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Samuel Johnson, Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 1775

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Grief is a species of idleness.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)

I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Samuel Johnson