Quotes By Author: Samuel Johnson

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

“Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.”

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

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries.”

“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

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

“It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.”

“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 written which cannot be understood.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

“In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.”