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Quotation by Samuel Johnson:

Power and wealth supply the place of each other. Power confers the ability of gratifying our desires without the consent of others; wealth enables us to obtain the consent of others to our gratification. Power, simply considered, whatever it confers on one, must take from another. Wealth enables its owner to give it to others by taking only from himself. Power pleases the violent and the proud; wealth delights the placid and the timorous. Youth, therefore, flies at power, and age grovels after riches.

Samuel Johnson     (more by this author)

1709-1784 (Age at death: 75 approx.)

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [O.S. 7 September] - 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.

Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, and attended Pembroke College, Oxford for a year, before his lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher he moved to London, where he began to write essays for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene.

Country: England