Literary Birthday – 18 September – Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709 and died on 13 December 1784.

Samuel Johnson Quotes

1. I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
2. Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
3. In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
4. What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
5. To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
6. It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
7. 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.
8. A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.
9. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
10. 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 one book.
11. ‘Paradise Lost’ is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
12. The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.

Samuel Johnson was an English poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer (creator of dictionaries). He is regarded as one of the greatest intellectual figures of the 18th-century. Johnson is remembered for his aphorisms such as, ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel’, (and others quoted above) that made him one of the most frequently quoted English writers. Many of these were recorded in The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell. Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, dominated English lexicography for over a century. It included a history of the language, grammar, and a word list based on contemporary London conversation and their use by respected writers. The most often cited authors included William Shakespeare, John Milton, and John Dryden. Johnson also helped define what is now known as ‘English Literature’ through his criticism and editing work. In 2009, Johnson was among 10 people selected by the Royal Mail for their ‘Eminent Britons’ commemorative postage stamp issue.

Source for Image: Public Domain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg#filelinks

by Amanda Patterson

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