Samuel Johnson Quotes About Writing

• Language is the dress of thought.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Learning, Thinking

  Lives of the English Poets "Cowley" (1779 - 1781)

• Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

  Samuel Johnson

  Perseverance, Writing, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.145

• What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Success, Dance, Life And Love

  Samuel Johnson (1831). “The Lives of the English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works and Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons”, p.47

• A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Reading, Writing

• Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Suffering, Lovers

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.258

• It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Fall, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (1966). “Johnsonian miscellanies”, Constable

• The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Reading, Writing, Enjoy Life

  'A Free Enquiry' (1757, ed. D. Greene, 1984) reviewing Soame Jenyns

• What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

  Samuel Johnson

  Inspirational, Book, Writing

  Quoted in William Seward, Biographia (1799)

• A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 6 Apr. 1775)

• You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets it on paper, it's not War and Peace anymore; it's comic-book stuff. 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

  War, Book, Writing

• He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

  Samuel Johnson

  Memories, Writing, Imagination

  Samuel Johnson (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: An essay on the life and genius of Dr. Johnson [by A. Murphy] Poems.- v. 2-4. The rambler.- v. 5. The idler. History of Rasselas, prince of Abissinia.- v. 6-8. The lives of the English poets.- v. 9. Lives of eminent persons. Letters, selected from the collection of Mrs. Piozzi and others. Prayers and meditations.- v. 10. Philological tracts, &c.- v. 11. Miscellaneous tracts, &c. Dedications. Reviews and criticisms. Tales of imagination. The adventurers.-”, p.59

• No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Money, Work

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 5 Apr. 1776)

• Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Silence, Abuse

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.51

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  "The Sayings of Doctor Johnson".

• A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Men, Political

• 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 a book.

  Samuel Johnson

  Time, Powerful, Book

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 6 Apr. 1775)

• The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Writing, Procrastination

  Statement on April 14, 1775. "Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, 1791.

• In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

  Samuel Johnson

  Memories, Writing, Men

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 407 (1775)

• ...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Poet, Labor

  Samuel Johnson (1854). “Lives of the British Poets: In Four Volumes”, p.244

• Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Faults

  Samuel Johnson, Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay (1854). “Lives of the most eminent English poets: with critical observations on their works”, p.223

• It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never maintain a single day of unmingled innocence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Ideas, Perfection

  "The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D". Book by John Hawkins, 1787.

• New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Writing, Long

  Samuel Johnson (1821). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.373

• Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Understanding, Littles

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.206

• As every writer has his use, every writer ought to have his patrons; and since no man, however high he may now stand, can be certain that he shall not be soon thrown down from his elevation by criticism or caprice, the common interest of learning requires that her sons should cease from intestine hostilities, and, instead of sacrificing each other to malice and contempt, endeavour to avert persecution from the meanest of their fraternity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Son, Sacrifice

  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.32

• Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Thinking, Trouble

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

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