18 September—Today we celebrate the 315^th birthday of Samuel Johnson. Of Lichfield, Staffordshire, the alleged namesake of Litchfield, Connecticut. “Quotation,” Dr. Johnson observed, “is the highest compliment you can pay an author.” (No surprise he never observed that plagiarism is simply quotation without attribution.) So here’s a small sampling of his pithy, perceptive, practical, usually wise and witty quotations:

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”

“A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

“Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

“Nature has given woman so much power that the law cannot afford to give her more.”

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“You can never be wise unless you love reading.”

“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.”

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”

“The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.”

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

“Language is the dress of thought.”

“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

“A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.”

“Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.”

“He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.”

“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”

“It is better to live rich than to die rich.”

“A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.”

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.”

“He who praises everybody, praises nobody.”

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”

“There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.”

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

“Hell is paved with good intentions.”

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings”

“To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.”

“Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.”

“I do not care to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I believe he is an attorney.”

And of course, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”