Samuel Johnson

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily read more

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A student may easily exhaust read more

Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by read more

The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired read more

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.