Samuel Johnson Quotes About Originality

• From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,- Path, motive, guide, original, and end.

  Samuel Johnson

  Spring, Path, Originality

  Samuel Johnson (1752). “The Rambler”, p.12

• To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

• As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatised as plagiarism. The adoption of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost compensate for invention; and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the paths of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Adoption, Ornaments

  Samuel Johnson (1782). “The Beauties of Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.117

• To do nothing is in everyone's power.

  Samuel Johnson

  Power, Progress, Originality

• No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Ideas, Coherence

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.106

• 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 themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Writing, May

  Samuel Johnson (2003). “Selected Essays”, p.525, Penguin UK

• The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Mean, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (1828). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.278

• Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.

  Samuel Johnson

  Long, Literature, Lasts

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 449 (20 March 1776)

• Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lying, Greatness, Watches

  Samuel Johnson (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson: maxims and observations. To which are now added, biographical anecdotes of the doctor, his life [&c.].”, p.103

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