Writing Quotes by Samuel Johnson

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

— Samuel Johnson

Allegories drawn to great length will always break.

— Samuel Johnson

“Never trust a man who writes more than he reads.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.

— Samuel Johnson

By writing, you learn to write.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

— Samuel Johnson

It is much easier not to write like a man than to write like a woman.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in…

— 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

To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind…

— Samuel Johnson

Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare…

— Samuel Johnson

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

— 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

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

— Samuel Johnson

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which…

— Samuel Johnson

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on…

— Samuel Johnson

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great…

— Samuel Johnson

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only…

— Samuel Johnson

To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number;…

— 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

To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference…

— 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

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

— Samuel Johnson

Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention…

— Samuel Johnson

To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the…

— Samuel Johnson

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

By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations of petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences,…

— 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

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

— Samuel Johnson

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey…

— Samuel Johnson

“That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open…

— Samuel Johnson