There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets. – Samuel Johnson
There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner? – Samuel Johnson
This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery. – Samuel Johnson
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles. – Samuel Johnson
The flowery Path of Poetry but ill accords with the thorny Mazes of the Law; in the one I have wandered with rapture from Infancy, and I have endeavoured to grace the other with a simple but lasting Ornament—Integrity of Heart. – Charles Snart, “Dedication, to Robert Lowe, Esq. Oxton,” 1807 January 1st, Newar