An Essay On The Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson

Famous quotes containing the words samuel johnson, essay, life, genius and/or johnson:

“Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

“Essay writing is perhaps ... the easiest for the author and requires little more than what is called a fluency of words and a vivacity of expression to avoid dullness; but without ... a real foundation of matter ... an essay writer is very apt, like Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, to think that if he had the tediousness of a king, he would bestow it all upon his readers.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)

“In time, after a dozen years of centering their lives around the games boys play with one another, the boys’ bodies change and that changes everything else. But the memories are not erased of that safest time in the lives of men, when their prime concern was playing games with guys who just wanted to be their friendly competitors. Life never again gets so simple.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)

“They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some elephantiasis victim with his distended testicles in a wheelbarrow terrified no doubt that some skulking ingrate of a clone student will sneak into his very brain and steal his genius work.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)

“Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.”
—Lionel Pigot Johnson (1867–1902)