Samuel Johnson Quotes
I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Vol. 1, Charles Dilly, 1791, p. 321.
Einstein’s religious views were very sophisticated and unusual. He was a deist—a believer in God. He was of Jewish background and like some Protestant sects, Jews can interpret scripture and the nature of God as individuals. They need not follow a particular doctrine. However Einstein had a very complex vision of God—as he described it, the “God of Spinoza”—a 17th century Rabbi and Philosopher whose views were so radical that his books were banned and he was excommunicated by the Rabbis of Holland, a rarity in Judaism. This view of God is not the human-related form but a view of God as an abstraction everpresent and a prime mover inherent in nature, the world and in humanity.
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".
