Samuel Johnson Quotes

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

Samuel Johnson

• Life
• Writing

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Quotes to Explore

• These rules may seem simple enough, but it will require great morale and physical courage to adhere to them. But if carried out in the strict sense of the word it will surely lead to a greater success than could otherwise be attained.

  

  Major Taylor
  • Great
  • May
  • Success

• The tragedy of all of this is that it happened to me and it shouldn't have happened. It ruined my life and my career. That's the tragedy of this.

  

  Rafael Palmeiro
  • Life
  • Career
  • Me

• The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Stop
  • Government
  • Mystery

• You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life.

  

  Jacob Bronowski
  • Life
  • Up
  • Time

• The utterly fallacious idea at the heart of the pro-war argument is that it is the duty of the anti-war argument to provide an alternative to war. The onus is on them to explain just cause.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • Heart
  • War
  • Argument

• Understanding that being nervous, having doubts and lacking confidence are emotions that are human is how you deal with it. It is okay to feel that way... and then understanding that you can work through it.

  

  Venus Williams
  • Work
  • Understanding
  • Confidence

• Looking up and out, how can we not respect this ever-vigilant cognizance that distinguishes us: the capability to envision, to dream, and to invent? the ability to ponder ourselves? and be aware of our existence on the outer arm of a spiral galaxy in an immeasurable ocean of stars? Cognizance is our crest.

  

  Vanna Bonta
  • Up
  • Dream
  • Knowledge

• For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.

  

  Saint Teresa of Avila
  • God
  • Prayer
  • Friendship

• Criticism in the universities, I'll have to admit, has entered a phase where I am totally out of sympathy with 95% of what goes on. It's Stalinism without Stalin.

  

  Harold Bloom
  • Criticism
  • Sympathy
  • Universities

• I feel quite safe and isolated in Germany. My wife is very well known there. But I am only looked at when I am holding her hand.

  

  Sam Riley
  • Wife
  • Safe
  • Germany

• I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Book
  • Know
  • Famous

• I'm a dirt person. I trust the dirt. I don't trust diamonds and gold.

  

  Eartha Kitt
  • Trust
  • Gold
  • Diamonds

• The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all - that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open - has disappeared.

  

  Federico Fellini
  • Movie
  • Dream
  • Lost

• We have agreed with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cease all acts of violence against the Israelis and against the Palestinians wherever they are. Tranquility and quiet that will be witnessed and in our land, starting today, is the beginning for a new era.

  

  Mahmoud Abbas
  • Today
  • Beginning
  • Violence

• People weren't buying as many records. My record company did not want me. I went through three record companies, went on tour at the wrong time. It destroyed me.

  

  Adam Ant Adam and the Ants
  • People
  • Time
  • Want

• There are a lot of people who consider themselves 'spiritual,' but that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I don't really talk about it that often, because there's too much talk in the world. Especially with Christians, there's more proselytizing than there is actual living proof of it. That's kind of sad.

  

  Zachary Levi
  • People
  • World
  • Spiritual

• I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.

  

  Adam Driver
  • Life
  • Time
  • House

• It is inappropriate to discuss matters of business, pleasure or current events in the temple.

  

  L. Lionel Kendrick
  • Business
  • Pleasure
  • Temple

• The artists is responsible for his history and his nature, his history is part of his nature.

  

  Ad Reinhardt
  • History
  • Nature

• It is foolishly thought by some that democratical constitutions will not, cannot, last; that the States will quarrel with each other; that a king, or at least a nobility, are indispensable for the prosperity of a nation.

  

  Marquis de Lafayette
  • King

• It’s been said many times in world art writing that one can find some of painting’s meaning by looking not only at what painters do, but what they refuse to do.

  

  Ad Reinhardt
  • World
  • Writing
  • Art

• Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It's just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.

  

  Philip Roth
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Baseball

• I weighed 25 stone, and I didn't stand nine feet tall, so the weight didn't sit well on me. As big as a house? No. I was as big as an estate.

  

  Victor LaValle
  • House
  • Me
  • Weight

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Life
  • Writing