“A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.” — Samuel Johnson | V2Melody

“A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.”

Measuring civilisation by how it treats people in need · Boswell, Life of Johnson

Hope
Society

About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

18 September 1709–13 December 1784

Samuel Johnson stands as one of the most imposing and fascinating figures in the history of English literature, a man whose physical bulk was matched only by the magnitude of his intellectual achievements and the breadth of his influence on the language itself. Born on September 18, 1709, in Lichfield, Staffordshire…

More by Samuel Johnson

Poems by Samuel Johnson

More remarks by Samuel Johnson

“There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.”

Questioning writers who disguise labour and craft as effortless inspiration · Lives of the Poets, Congreve

Art
Truth

“Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.”

Seeing courage as the virtue that protects every other virtue · Boswell, Life of Johnson

Hope
Truth

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.”

Defining wealth partly through the scale of desire rather than possession alone · Rambler No. 163

Joy
Truth