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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

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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
Much
Greatest
Heads
Understandings
Understanding
Readers
Particulars
Common
Lays
Extensive
Use
Throw
Multitude
Part
Details
Comprehension
Littles
Rules
Multitudes
Nicety
Little
General
Detail
Disgusts
Writing
Reader
Disgusting
Niceties

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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.
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It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.
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Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.
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All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.
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Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
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Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself
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Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.
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Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
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The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
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All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
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When a Man is tried of London, he is tired of life.
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There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
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Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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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.
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