Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him… — 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
Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. — 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
Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Many leave the labours of half their life to their executors and to chance, because they will not send them abroad unfinished,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very… — 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
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 Copy Share Image
About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There are certain topicks which are never exhausted. Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on… — 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
Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in… — 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
A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a… — 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
