Writer Quotes by Samuel Johnson

The booksellers are generous liberal-minded men.

— Samuel Johnson

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

— Samuel Johnson

I respect Millar: he has raised the price of literature

— Samuel Johnson

The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.

— Samuel Johnson

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

— Samuel Johnson

If you want to be a writer, then write. Write every day!

— Samuel Johnson

I respect Millar, sir: he has raised the price of literature.

— Samuel Johnson

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

— Samuel Johnson

Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.

— Samuel Johnson

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

— Samuel Johnson

People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.

— Samuel Johnson

The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.

— Samuel Johnson

A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city.

— Samuel Johnson

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.

— Samuel Johnson

There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.

— Samuel Johnson

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

— Samuel Johnson

People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to…

— Samuel Johnson

There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.

— 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

What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing…

— Samuel Johnson

There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the…

— Samuel Johnson

It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with…

— Samuel Johnson

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a…

— Samuel Johnson

When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must…

— Samuel Johnson

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the…

— Samuel Johnson

Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a…

— Samuel Johnson

You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets…

— Samuel Johnson

Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have…

— 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

He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he…

— Samuel Johnson

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the…

— Samuel Johnson

Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce…

— Samuel Johnson

Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present…

— Samuel Johnson

By writing, you learn to write.

— Samuel Johnson

A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.

— Samuel Johnson

Books without the knowledge of life are useless.

— Samuel Johnson

“A books should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.”

— Samuel Johnson

“Every author does not write for every reader”

— Samuel Johnson

Nay, Sir, those who write in them, write well, in order to be paid well.

— Samuel Johnson

The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not…

— Samuel Johnson