JOHNSON'S COMMONPLACE BOOK

It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention...

He was expert both in the reconstruction and the playing of early wind instruments, avocations which which united his scholarly concern...

Prohibition lasted nation-wide  in the United States from 1920 to 1933.  However in the state of Mississippi until 1966.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A...

Sixty years ago this week, George Orwell  published his celebrated essay The Moon Under Water , in which he listed the 10 essentials of...

My favourite public-house, the Moon Under Water , is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies...

Her job entailed travelling to far-flung locations to find striking backgrounds for fashion shoots, usually in company with favoured...

I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me,...

Manners are minor morals. Harold Nicholson.

“Consumption of Club Claret has been steady at 2,136 bottles to date this year, and we have already consumed 392 bottles of Vintage Port,...

We hire the smile and teach the skills. Sam Walton, (founder of Walmart in 1962), (1919-1992)

The whole aim of governments and practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing...

There are some things so silly that only an intellectual could believe them. George Orwell

A fashion developed in the late 19th century among Oxford undergraduates for abbreviating words and adding the suffix.

St Hilary of Poitier's (315-367 AD)  feast day is on 14th January in the calendar. His name comes from the Latin word for happy or...