Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson was a well-known eighteenth century writer, and poet who published one of the first dictionaries of the English language. What he wrote a few hundred years ago in this piece still holds true today, though even a fluent-English-speaking individual may have difficulty understanding it.

Johnson argues that it’s man’s nature to search for power throughout life. We earn honor from either success or failure of our goals in life. No matter how small the goal may be, man will strive to accomplish it in order to reap fame. A love of life comes only when man is praised for attaining a certain rank by which he is advised. He will use his life’s qualities, good or bad, to achieve something that will give him a feeling of accomplishment, and will always try to fulfill his goals, no matter how hopeless they may seem. Every man always tries to be dominant over the competition, even if the dominance is attained unfairly.

There is always a hero or role model of some sort that will influence a person, and drive this greed for fame and fortune, even at the expense of others. If a person has already attained success in life, someone always tries to imitate them in hopes