Art Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

— Samuel Johnson

“The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.”

— Samuel Johnson

Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.

— Samuel Johnson

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

— Samuel Johnson

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

— Samuel Johnson

Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant

— Samuel Johnson

In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.

— Samuel Johnson

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise.

— Samuel Johnson

Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in…

— Samuel Johnson

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the…

— Samuel Johnson

Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are…

— Samuel Johnson

Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

— Samuel Johnson

There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think than to have learned the art of regaling his…

— Samuel Johnson

An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.

— Samuel Johnson

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very…

— Samuel Johnson

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience…

— Samuel Johnson

The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every…

— Samuel Johnson

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which…

— Samuel Johnson

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration,…

— Samuel Johnson

The man whose genius qualifies him for great undertakings must at least be content to learn from books the present state of…

— Samuel Johnson

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the…

— Samuel Johnson

Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by…

— Samuel Johnson

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience…

— Samuel Johnson

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs,…

— Samuel Johnson

The art of the writer, like that of the player, is attained by slow degrees. The power of distinguishing and discriminating comick…

— Samuel Johnson

It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of art to imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of…

— Samuel Johnson

“The chief advantage which these fictions have over real life is, that their authors are at liberty, though not to invent, yet…

— Samuel Johnson

I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use.…

— Samuel Johnson

The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature,…

— Samuel Johnson

Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each…

— Samuel Johnson

None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded…

— Samuel Johnson

“No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the…

— Samuel Johnson

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

— Samuel Johnson

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.

— Samuel Johnson

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as…

— Samuel Johnson

To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power…

— Samuel Johnson

The whole power of cunning is privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet…

— Samuel Johnson

“Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can…

— Samuel Johnson

The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the…

— Samuel Johnson

It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard; to…

— Samuel Johnson