Samuel Johnson (18 September [O.S. 7 September] 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man...
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
—Katherine Center in The Lost Husband