“Samuel Johnson: ‘I do not hate the Scots sir, neither do I hate frogs, but I’m damned if I like them hopping around my chambers.'”

John Lentell

3rd August, 1970

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

(Samuel Johnson, 1709 – 1784)

John Lentell

3rd March, 1970

“Knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

(Samuel Johnson, 1709 – 1784)
John Lentell

19th February, 1970

“Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,

And pause awhile from letters, to be wise;

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail,

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just,

To buried merit raise the tardy bust.”

(From The Vanity of Human Wishes by Samuel Johnson, 1709 – 1784)

John Lentell

28th March, 1969

“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”

(Samuel Johnson, 1709 – 1784)

John Lentell

1st February, 1969

“A hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.”

(Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784)

John Lentell

August 13th, 1968