Samuel Johnson/biography

Famous quotes containing the words samuel johnson, johnson and/or biography:

    I [Boswell] ... insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgment, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love like being enlivened with champagne. JOHNSON. “No, Sir; admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened.”
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
    —Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)