Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct. — 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
I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much. — 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
Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that the great object of remark is human life. Every nation… — 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
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
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
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey… — 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
Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and… — 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 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
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
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
General irregularities are known in time to remedy themselves. By the constitution of ancient Egypt, the priesthood was continually increasing, till at… — 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
