Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

"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."
283 Quotes
"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."
Samuel Johnson The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2
"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works."
Samuel Johnson
"A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it."
Samuel Johnson Works of Samuel Johnson. Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, A Grammar of the English Tongue, Preface to Shakespeare, Lives of the English Poets & more [improved 11/20/2010]
"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."
Samuel Johnson Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II
"My congratulations to you, sir. 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."
Samuel Johnson
"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
Samuel Johnson
"All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it."
Samuel Johnson
"Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions."
Samuel Johnson
"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."
Samuel Johnson
"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."
Samuel Johnson
"Exercise is labor without weariness."
Samuel Johnson
"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich."
Samuel Johnson
"To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly."
Samuel Johnson
"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use."
Samuel Johnson
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
Samuel Johnson
"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money."
Samuel Johnson
"You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle."
Samuel Johnson
"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."
Samuel Johnson
"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions."
Samuel Johnson
"The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne."
Samuel Johnson
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