Quote

People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.

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
Work
Cost
Seldom
Way
Reading
Send
Men
Read
Sell
People
Given
Sells
Book
Price
Without
Lows
Even
Intention
Sixpence
Thing
Spread
Costs

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.
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I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
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The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.
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Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.
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Nobody can be taught faster than he can learn.
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By writing, you learn to write.
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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
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Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary but yet it is not easy to avoid.
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He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
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Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
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Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
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A vow is a snare for sin
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Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.
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By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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Women have two weapons - cosmetics and tears
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Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .
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Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. - John V. Lindsay No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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