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Writers Quotes by Samuel Johnson
- One of the amusements of idleness is reading without fatigue of close attention; and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to…
- Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
- It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with…
- Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
- The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
- Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters…
- There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds,…
- The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some…
- It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers; nor can the…
- No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
- To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without,…
- About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets.
- While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best
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