Johnson, Samuel(Dr. Johnson; the Great Cham of Literature)

English author, critic, and lexicographer

wrote "Dictionary of the English Language" 1747-1755, novel "Rasselas" 1759, 10-volume "Lives of the Poets" 1779-1781

• "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
• "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
• "We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over."
• "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
• "The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."