18 September: Samuel Johnson

This date in 1709 saw the birth of Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It took him nine years to create.

1. No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
2. Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
3. Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
4. The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
5. To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
6. Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
7. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
8. Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
9. Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
10. Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.