Happiness is the simpleton who thinks Samuel Johnson was being vulgar

 

Happiness is Hodge, Samuel Johnson's cat

 

Who, by his master when caressed,

warmly his gratitude expressed,

and never failed his thanks to purr,

whene'er he stroked his sable furr.

-- Percival Stockdale, 1778

Happiness is oats in England, if you are a horse

 

A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. 

-- Samuel Johnson

Everyone's out shopping today, but I'm happy to be at home instead

 

 

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

-- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #68 (November 10, 1750)

When you get right down to it, happiness is domestic independence

"How small, of all that human hearts endure,

That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,

Our own felicity we make or find:

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,

Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."

The poetry is Oliver Goldsmith's, but Samuel Johnson wrote it.

Samuel Johnson insisted "Taxation no tyranny", now Italians claim pasta not fattening

From the story here:

Researchers in Italy studied over 23,000 people in Italy and found that higher pasta intake was not associated with a raised body mass index (BMI) – widely used as a measurement of a person's body fat, based on a person's height and weight – and waist-to-hip ratio.

Dead this date for 400 years, I can think of no one's words which make me happier than William Shakespeare's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because ... 

 

his heroes are men, that the love and hatred, the hopes and fears, of his chief personages are such as common to other human beings. ... Shakespeare's excellence is not the fiction of a tale, but the representation of life: and his reputation is therefore safe, till human nature shall be changed.

-- Samuel Johnson

You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

-- Samuel Johnson

On Barbecue

"A term used in the West Indies for dressing a hog whole."

     -- Samuel Johnson's Dictionary 

Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endued,

Cries, Send me, gods, a whole hog barbecued.

     -- Alexander Pope