Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) produced one of the most quoted reference works in the English language — and his own writing produced nearly as many memorable lines as the authors he documented. His Dictionary of the English Language (1755) changed how people thought about words, and his conversation and essays still supply quotations that feel relevant nearly three centuries later.
The Dictionary Project
In 1746, a group of London booksellers commissioned Johnson to compile a complete English dictionary. He estimated the project would take three years. It took nine. Johnson worked largely alone, with a small team of assistants who copied out illustrative quotations on slips of paper. He read widely and selected passages not only to define words but to show them in their best literary context.
The result was 42,773 entries, many with multiple definitions, supported by over 114,000 illustrative quotations drawn from Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Bacon, and the Bible. Johnson’s definitions were sometimes tendentious — his entry for “lexicographer” reads: “A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.” — but they were rarely boring.
Johnson the Quotable Writer
Johnson’s biography, written by his friend James Boswell and published in 1791, is a treasure trove of recorded conversation. Boswell had an extraordinary ear for language, and Johnson’s remarks as recorded there have become a standard source for quotation:
- “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” — Life of Johnson, September 20, 1777.
- “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” — Life of Johnson, April 7, 1775. Johnson meant a particular kind of performative nationalism, not love of country itself.
- “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” — Life of Johnson, April 18, 1775.
On the Instability of Language
Johnson’s preface to the Dictionary is itself a remarkable piece of prose, marked by a candid admission of failure: “I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.” He had hoped to “fix” English — to prevent the language from drifting — but concluded that no dictionary could stop change: “When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language.”
Johnson’s Lasting Influence
Johnson’s dictionary set the template for English lexicography and directly influenced Noah Webster when he compiled the first major American dictionary in 1828. The practice of supporting definitions with illustrative quotations — which Johnson standardized — remains central to major dictionaries today.