Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it. — 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
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame. — 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
People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free. — 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
Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. — 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
An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The man whose genius qualifies him for great undertakings must at least be content to learn from books the present state of… — 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
The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only… — 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
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
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the… — 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
Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention… — 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
If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in… — 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
A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
That man (Lord Lyttelton) sat down to write a book, to tell the world what the world had all his life been… — 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
