« All Books Quotes · Samuel Johnson's Page
Books Quotes by Samuel Johnson
- Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
- Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed…
- People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as…
- Lectures were once useful; but now when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary.
- Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books, as a race…
- Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.
- Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a…
- By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations of petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences, are avoided. An…
- To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the…
- When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour…
- Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the…
- Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more…
- Tradition is but a meteor, which, if it once falls, cannot be rekindled. Memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. But written learning is…
- Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an…
- Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws…
- Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
- Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
- A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
- Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
- He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are…
More Books Quotes
- Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve some bold adventure, worthy of our trip. — Aristophanes
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- I'd never heard of the 'Lord of the Rings', actually. So I went to the bookstore and there it was, three shelves… — Sean Astin
- That is, to me at least, one of the most helpful and useful things books do for us: They are generous enough… — John Green
- Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them… — Paul Auster
- I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my… — Isaac Asimov
- Writers and books are cheap dates, especially when you compare the cost of a book with a ticket to the opera -… — Margaret Atwood
- I have been known to buy e-versions of my books because I was in a hotel room and I needed one right… — Margaret Atwood