Samuel Johnson on Joseph Addison

“That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”

“No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.”

“The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.”

“Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”

“He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.”