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This Samuel Johnson was born in 1649 and, after being educated at St. Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, was ordained. He left the living to which he had been presented, because he did not think the climate good for his health, and put it in charge of a curate. He settled in London and Lord Russell presently appointed him his domestic chaplain. ... (p. 132)

... This was Samuel Johnson. I was taken aback when I first came across the name, for to all bookish persons it seems naturally to belong to one particular man and out of the question that anyone else should venture to possess it. Of course, during the centuries there may well have been hundreds of Samuel Johnsons in England both before and after our cherished doctor. ... (p. 131)

"There is something of vanity mingled with all our earthly enjoyments. There is no sensual pleasure, but it is either purchased with some pain, or attended with it, or ends in it. A great estate is neither got without care, nor kept without fear, nor lost without trouble. Dignity and greatness is troublesome to almost all mankind; it is commonly uneasy to them that have it, and it is usually hated ..." (p. 101)

The Maharshi loved animals and had a strange power over them. The Brahmins considered dogs unholy, polluting, and avoided their contact. The Maharshi regarded them as fellow-ascetics who had come to atone for the error of their past lives in his proximity. He saw that they were kept clean and comfortable, and lovingly called them the children of the Ashram. He talked to them and gave them instruction ... (p. 87)

After the first few minutes, during which his eyes with a gentle benignity rested on my face, ..., but, with a sidelong stare of a peculiar fixity, gazed, as it were, over my shoulder. His body was absolutely still, but now and then one of his feet tapped lightly on the earthen floor. ... I was feeling weak and ill, and said so; whereupon he smiled and said, "Silence also is conversation". ... (p. 58)

It is one of those agreeable books ... It is true that Eckermann often gives you his own contributions to the conversation at undue length. So did Hazlitt, when he recorded his talks with Northcote, but Goethe's secretary was not the brilliant writer that Hazlitt was. He was the son, one of five children, of a poor peasant, and by tenacity and hard work had managed to get a sound education. ... (pp. 50-51)

In the following pages I do not propose to tell the story of Goethe's life; but since he said himself that pretty well everything he wrote, except the books devoted to his scientific interests, was in one way or another a revelation of himself, I shall be obliged to give some account of various events of his personal history. When just over twenty, he entered the university of Strasbourge to study law, ... (p. 3)