Samuel Johnson Quotes About Judgement

• He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his merit to the public judgement. To commence author is to claim praise, and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Men, May

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.149

• Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Thinking, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.136

• Judgment is forced upon us by experience

  Samuel Johnson

  Judgement, Judgment

  Samuel Johnson (1804). “The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland: And a Criticism on Their Works”, p.502

• Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Age, Admiration

  "The Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell, p. 485, 1791.

• Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

  Samuel Johnson

  Long, Imagination, Judging

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1792). “Miscellaneous essays. Political tracts. A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland”, p.100

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