Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.


Samuel Johnson

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The great Cham of literature. (Samuel Johnson)
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Invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.” ~ Samuel John...
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Do not love leisure. Waste not a minute. Be bold. Realize the Truth, here and now!
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During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoyin...
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During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoyin...
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There are many standards to measure if a person was successful including did they fill a niche role ...
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Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.
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Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.
QUEEN VICTORIA
Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.
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We realize that we can still play better. Were still improving. We make advances every day and we co...
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Revolutions are not about trifles, but they spring from trifles
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Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men's...
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They were successful and worked well together. They have knowledge with both sports and have shown g...
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Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.
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Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.
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Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation
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My between-books strategy was reading voraciously and on a whim.
ERIK LARSON
How to share leisure time is a phantom issue between husbands and wives. It is more important than m...
GIRDHAR JOSHI
It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.
DORIS LESSING
As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by...
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
The words I'm singing now Mean nothing more than meow to an animal
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned...
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Trifles make perfection--and perfection is no trifle.
MICHELANGELO
Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
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Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the laz...
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy ...
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Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be us...
HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ
Our corners were way too soft early. I don't know if they were intimidated by their speed or intimid...
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When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense of curiosity had ...
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Encourage your own curiosity; pursue the problems based on that. Don't get diverted by trying to...
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Trifles go to make perfection, And perfection is no trifle.
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The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I've often found myself following in their f...
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Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains, they drown in every drop.
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Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.
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(He) just walked in, hugged the cheetah, was great friends with him. They were buddy-buddy in a minu...
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Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions...
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Our job is to make sure the money is not diverted to fraudsters.
ALICE FISHER
Lyndon Johnson was a profoundly insecure man who feared dissent and craved reassurance. In 1964 and ...
H. R. MCMASTER
All these which were chosen to be porters in the gates were two hundred and twelve. These were recko...
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Quoting Samuel Johnson: "Men know that ...
JAMES BOSWELL Mr. Johnson changed the color of American media. Before Ebony, before Mr. Johnson, blacks were not s...
LERONE BENNETT
Actually, it is an extremely stiff penalty for someone who's children were not injured. Their decisi...
DARA CASHMAN
Curiosity is a call from knowledge.
TOBA BETA
Knowledge is curiosity to know more.
LAILAH GIFTY AKITA
Curiosity is more important than knowledge.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Her searches after knowledge were arbitrary and without context. It was as if she were shining a sma...
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The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their ...
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The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their c...
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The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained in sudden flight but, they while their c...
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Revolutions are not trifles, but spring from trifles.
ARISTOTLE
Trifles go to make perfection,
And perfection is no trifle.
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH
He pitched good, not great. And if he doesn't give it up to Johnson, he pitches great.
CLIFF FLOYD
Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag...
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Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantag...
WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM
But in a time of war, knowledge made interesting friendships. Soon, the scholars and the thieves wer...
KEN LIU
The lake of my mind, unbroken by oars, heaves placidly and soon sinks into an oily somnolence.’ Th...
VIRGINIA WOOLF
One of the great challenges of our age, in which the tools of our productivity are also the tools of...
JOSHUA FOER
Revolutions are not about trifles, but spring from trifles.
ARISTOTLE
We were surprised by how well prepared the filers were in general, ... They had done their homework....
CHARLES MILLER
Reading might be the root of ideas and inventions, even in the case of leisure reading.
ERALDO BANOVAC
Trifles make the sum of life.
CHARLES DICKENS
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They say that knowledge is power.I think not ,knowledge is power in the wrong hands its a weapon.In ...
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Consider your origins: you were not made that you might live as brutes, but so as to follow virtue a...
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The mental and physical reactions to what are perceived as labor and leisure are distinctively diffe...
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An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but...
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
My great forte in killing buffaloes was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the h...
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Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 [Dr. Johnson to a Q...
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The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by peo...
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The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by peo...
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Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole.They make you selfish. They...
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Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions,...
LORD CHESTERFIELD
Men are lead by trifles.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
All around me insisted that my doubts proved only my own ignorance and sinfulness; that they knew by...
MARIA MONK
I might still make some last minute changes due to the weather.
RASSIE ERASMUS
They were lengthy and they were incomplete and they weren't useful because they were very difficult ...
JAMES MCLEAN
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not obtained by sudden flight,
But they, while...
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Adam Gottbetter’s method of focus group is particularly useful for exploring people's knowledge an...
ADAM GOTTBETTER
Knowledge comes from curiosity; wisdom comes from experience.
DEBASISH MRIDHA
They were the best of friends as long as they did not know they were supposed to be enemies. The tru...
MARIE LU
I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.
EDWARD ALBEE
Some people haven't really seen him. They might hear maybe this guy's the best back in the league an...
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I'm into emulation, not imitation.
CHUCK INGLISH
I was induced to establish several orders of merit, from conviction that emulation, well directed, b...
JOSEPH LANCASTER
That's why they are Purdue and we're not. They were able to sustain that run and make a great run wh...
BETH COMBS
It is my fervent hope and prayer that by exposing my mistakes and by pointing out the things that we...
JOHN CLAYTON
A fool and water will go the way they are diverted.
AFRICAN PROVERB
Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 ...
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My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good...
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
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The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispe...
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Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
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It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
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The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
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If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
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If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
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Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
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He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
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Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse ...
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As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
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Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.
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Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
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Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
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A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
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There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a...
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There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good unti...
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The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effront...
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Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
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The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. B...
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Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially ...
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Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make fa...
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Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as m...
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Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes ...
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When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.
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Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
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No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
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It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be aft...
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Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves wit...
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There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiabl...
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Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
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He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
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Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it ...
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Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things ...
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
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It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
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Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not...
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Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
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The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of ...
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
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He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
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You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense o...
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
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Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself ...
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I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and...
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Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persu...
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Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
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Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, an...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and la...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bul...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly beco...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Suspicion is most often useless pain.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit tho...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely e...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom natur...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors afte...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the f...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again exp...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: b...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
SAMUEL JOHNSON