In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness - inspissated gloom. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, thogh… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure science, which has only to do with ideas, and the application of… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away,and which new images… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is true that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the limbs, so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs,… — 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
