“No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.”

Making public greatness dependent on moral character · An Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain

• Politics
• Truth

“Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life.”

Praising Shakespeare for reflecting enduring human behaviour · Preface to Shakespeare

• Nature
• Poetry
• Truth

“Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.”

Suggesting that human beings need pleasures to sweeten life's hardships · Piozzi, Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson

• Joy
• Mortality