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I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Look
Looks
Inducement
Writing
Dictionary
Work
Motive
Love
Fame
Upon
Desire
Money

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.
Samuel Johnson
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A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.
Samuel Johnson
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Samuel Johnson
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The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
Samuel Johnson
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When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
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The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.
Samuel Johnson
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The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Samuel Johnson
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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
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All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
Samuel Johnson
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
Samuel Johnson
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Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
Samuel Johnson
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
Samuel Johnson
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The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.
Samuel Johnson
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Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
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Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge.
Samuel Johnson
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It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
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Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
Samuel Johnson
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He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Samuel Johnson
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
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The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.
Samuel Johnson