Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of cookery. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Women can spin very well, but they cannot write a good book of cookery. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Lectures were once useful; but now when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why;… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations of petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number;… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Tradition is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled. Memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. But… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of close attention; and the world therefore swarms with writers whose… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
