Argumentation Quote by Samuel Johnson

“Among the numerous requisites that must concur to complete an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The seed of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment and the powers of attraction can be gained only by a general converse.”

Samuel Johnson

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.4 out of 5 (8 ratings)

More by Samuel Johnson

The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

Samuel Johnson

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

Image

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

Samuel Johnson

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

Image

All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.

Samuel Johnson

Image

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

Samuel Johnson

Image

It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

Samuel Johnson

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

Image

The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power.

Samuel Johnson

Image

Words are daughters of earth but ideas are sons of heaven.

Samuel Johnson

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

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

Image

Explore all 1,998 Samuel Johnson quotes

More Argumentation quotes

“An objection which applies to all conduct can be no valid objection to any conduct in particular.”

John Stuart Mill

Image

They [human beings] are unwilling to gamble that God made those people who are skilled at rational argumentation uniquely virtuous. They protect themselves and…

James G. March

Image

Al-Ghazali is the most important philosophical theologian of classical Islam, and Moderation in Belief is among his most important works. It sets out al-Ghazali's…

Peter Adamson

Image

Do not dispute with anyone in any matter as far as possible. For in argumentation lies much harm and its evil is greater than…

Al-Ghazali

Image

I think sometimes younger people - not necessarily thinkers and intellectuals and the like, but people who are on social media and who are…

Michael Eric Dyson

Image

As a science, logic institutes an analysis of the process of the mind in reasoning, and investigating the principles on which argumentation is conducted;…

Richard Whately