Samuel Johnson Quotes

I have a book on my bathroom bookshelf named Schott's Original Miscellany.  It is filled with informational tidbits that are sometimes interesting (The rules of Cricket), sometimes mind-boggling (the word in English purported to have the most letters is the scientific name for the Tobacco Mosaic Virus, which has 1,185 letters, and which I will not reproduce here) and sometimes useful (a list of commonly mispelled (sic) words, including conasuwer, which is, correctly, "connoisseur").


But, most importantly for this particular post, there is also a set of quotations from Samuel Johnson (the author of the first essential English Dictionary, and a thought-provoking wit).  I thoroughly enjoy Samuel Johnson's work and so I will offer a sub-selection of Schott's selection of quotes.

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

"In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness."

"Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out."

"The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero...must drink brandy."

"To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise.  It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage."

"The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends."

"Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he doesn't possess."

"It matters not how a man dies, but how a man lives.  The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

"He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great."

Citation:
Schott, Ben. Schott's Original Miscellany. Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom. 1988. Pages 22, 23