I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction:… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure good. I would let him at first… — 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
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
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
The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations… — 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
Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but… — 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
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
I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it. — 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
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
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Whatever is attempted without previous certainty of success, may be considered as a project, and amongst narrow minds may, therefore, expose its… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
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 Image
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
