Clergyman's

But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa­tions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them.
- Samuel Johnson

The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.
- Samuel Johnson

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
- Samuel Johnson

Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.
- Samuel Johnson

Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
- Samuel Johnson

Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.
- Samuel Johnson

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
- Samuel Johnson