Poems List
It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
It might as well be said ‘Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.’
It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive ... that the mind might perform its functions without incumbrance, and the pasLmight no longer encroach upon the present.
Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of ‘The Natural History of Iceland’, from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus:—‘ CHAP. Lxxii. Concerning snakes. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.’
Johnson observed, that “he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney .”
Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
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Samuel Johnson (18 de setembro de 1709 - 13 de dezembro de 1784) foi um escritor inglês que se tornou um dos mais célebres intelectuais do seu tempo. Nascido em Lichfield, Staffordshire, lutou com problemas de saúde e financeiros durante grande parte da sua vida. A sua obra mais influente, 'A Dictionary of the English Language' (1755), foi um marco na lexicografia inglesa, definindo o vocabulário e a ortografia da língua. Johnson também produziu ensaios perspicazes, sermões, poemas e biografias, incluindo 'Lives of the Poets'. Foi uma figura central nos círculos literários de Londres, conhecido pela sua inteligência aguçada, conversação brilhante e opiniões firmes. A sua vida e obra foram imortalizadas na 'Life of Samuel Johnson' de James Boswell, uma das biografias mais importantes da literatura inglesa.