Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was the great English lexicographer, born in Lichfield, the son of a bookseller. He received his early education in his native town and completed it at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1728. In 1736, he married a widow named Porter, who brought him £800. He started a boarding-school, which did not prosper, and in the end of a year he removed to London along with David Garrick, who had been a pupil under him. Here he became connected with Cave, a printer, the proprietor of the Gentleman's Magazine, with whom he had previously corresponded, and contributed to the pages of the magazine, earning thereby a meagre livelihood, eking out his means by reporting Parliamentary debates in terms which expressed the drift of them, but in his own pompous language.In 1740, he published a poem entitled the "Vanity of Human Wishes," and about the same time commenced his world-famous Dictionary, which was Published in 1755, "a great, solid, square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete, the best of all dictionaries". During the progress of the Dictionary Johnson edited the Rambler, writing most of the contents himself, carrying it on for two years. In 1758, he started the Idler. In 1762, the king granted him a pension of £300, and by this he was raised above the straitened circumstances which till then had all along weighed upon him, and able to live in comparative affluence for the last 22 years of his life. Five years after he instituted the Literary Club, which consisted of the most celebrated men of the time, his biographer, Boswell, having by this time been introduced to him, as subsequently the family of Mr. Thrale. In 1770, he began his "Lives of the English Poets," and in 1773 he made a tour in the Highlands along with Boswell, of which journey he shortly afterwards published an account. Johnson's writings are now dead, as are many of his opinions, but the story of his life as written by Boswell will last as long as men revere those qualities of mind and heart that distinguish the English race, of which he is the typical representative.
Wisdom & Quoted
- A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
- If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone.
- Being in a ship is being in jail, with the chance of being drowned.
- Ignorance, pure ignorance.
- You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one,
though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
- quoted in James Boswell's Life of Johnson, May 24, 1763
- If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.
- Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
- Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
- A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said it was the triumph of hope over experience.
- A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation.
- Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
- Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
- I have all my life long been lying (in bed) till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.
- The noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads to London.
- The Irish are a fair people; - they never speak well of another.
- A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority.
- No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
- Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
- I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
- I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
- The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement.
- I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness and consolidates society.
- No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
- By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
- All power, of whatever sort, is desirable.
- They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
- Excise, n. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom the excise is paid.
- Oats, n. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
- Language is the dress of thought.
- Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
- Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
- To a poet nothing can be useless.
- No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
- There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
- Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
- He who endeavours to please must appear to be pleased.
- About things on which the public thinks long it commonly thinks right.
- Preserve me from unseasonable and immoderate sleep.
Dang Tran Con