#johnson

I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#boswell #corrupt #corruption #freedom #johnson

When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor. ↗

— Bob Dylan

#music #robert-johnson #music

During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoying big talk. ↗

— Fred Allen

#days #during #enjoying #had #johnson

I thought Nixon was the worst President we had ever had, save only perhaps Andrew Johnson. ↗

— Stephen Ambrose

#ever #had #i #johnson #nixon

My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda, they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson, who wasn't too cool. He was a nice, homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked. ↗

— Michael Caine

#blond #blond hair #boy #cool #created

I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it. ↗

— Jonathan Coe

#became #biography #circle #closed #could

I'm an advocate of the great Dr. Johnson, the English man of letters who said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. ↗

— George Galloway

#advocate #dr #english #great #i

When I grew up Carl Lewis was still running, Maurice Greene was running - he was that figure I see, like Michael Johnson. I really wanted to look up to the fast guys - so those two guys were some of the guys I looked up to. ↗

— Tyson Gay

#fast #figure #greene #grew #guys

I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul and honesty of the blues. ↗

— Jack White

#blew #blues #cream #dabbled #discard

Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson's administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's brilliant 'whiz kids' tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#also #brainy #brilliant #defense #disastrous