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 of also attaining success. Man will even give up his own qualities and adopt the others in order to reach that goal. Anyone who has ever accomplished

something knows the feeling of being praised, and they thrive to accomplish more just to get that feeling.

I can in some way relate my goals in life to this article. My current main goal is to graduate college, although I still haven’t decided what I will do afterwards. I may not be completely sure what I will do for a living, but my instincts tell me to do whatever it takes to succeed. Reading this article has showed me that it is possible to achieve many things as long as you have will power, and for as long

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