“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

—  Samuel Johnson

Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 6, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
Source: Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read." by Samuel Johnson?
Samuel Johnson photo
Samuel Johnson362
English writer 1709–1784

Related quotes

“That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Preface
Lacon (1820)

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“A man who has never looked on Niagra has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barère's Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Mémoires de Bertrand Barère (1844)

Harper Lee photo

“There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

H.L. Mencken photo

“Socialism is the theory that the desire of one man to get something he hasn’t got is more pleasing to a just God than the desire of some other man to keep what he has got.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

A Little Book in C Major, New York, NY, John Lane Company (1916) p. 51
1910s

Mikhail Lermontov photo

“The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.”

Mikhail Lermontov book A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Charles Spurgeon photo

“I never wish to be more charitable than Christ. I find it written: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 490.

Joseph Addison photo

“When I read the rules of criticism, I immediately inquire after the works of the author who has written them, and by that means discover what it is he likes in a composition.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 115.
The Guardian (1713)

Rigoberto González photo

“I know what he means: the taste of language that is only spoken and never written because the speaker most likely doesn't read or write. My father has it, too.”

Rigoberto González (1970) American writer

Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006)

Edgar Wallace photo

“What is a highbrow? He is a man who has found something more interesting than women.”

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) British crime writer, journalist and playwright

New York Times, 24 January 1932, sec.8, p. 6

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book I, Chapter 5, "We Have Cause to Be Uneasy"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Context: We have two bits of evidence about the Somebody. One is the universe He has made. If we used that as our only clue, I think we should have to conclude that He was a great artist (for the universe is a very beautiful place), but also that He is quite merciless and no friend to man (for the universe is a very dangerous and terrifying place.)... The other bit of evidence is that Moral Law which He has put in our minds. And this is a better bit of evidence than the other, because it is inside information. You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.

Related topics