These Lives are the maturest and strongest of Johnson's work. It ought be a comfort to men past middle life to find Johnson, like Dryden, wrote his b… - Walter Raleigh

I wish I loved the human Race,
I wish I loved its silly face,
I wish I liked the way it walks,
I wish I liked the way it talks,
And when I'm introduced to one,
I wish I thought "what jolly fun"!

God's most candid critics are those of his children whom he has made poets.

The sense of liberty and power, and of belief in the capacity and destiny of man, which was quickened by the new discoveries, distinguishes the literature of the Elizabethan age from the great backward-looking periods of romance. It is a literature of youth and hope, with none of the subtle and poignant flavours that are to be tasted in a literature of regret and memory.