“ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.”

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

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 "ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition." by Samuel Johnson?
Samuel Johnson photo
Samuel Johnson 362
English writer 1709–1784

Related quotes

John Adams photo

“Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to his son, John Quincy Adams (13 November 1816)
1810s
Source: The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

Frank Zappa photo
Mao Zedong photo

“What we need is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind, and intense but orderly work.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

"Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch22.htm, (December 1936), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 211.

John Locke photo

“He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.”

Book III, Ch. 10, sec. 31
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Make your minds perfectly clear that if ever you let loose upon us again a general strike, we will loose upon you — another "British Gazette."”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons, July 7, 1926 "Emergency Services" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1926/jul/07/emergency-services#column_2218 ; at this time, Churchill was serving as Chancellor of the Excheqer under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.
Threatening the Labour Party and trade union movement with a return of the Government-published newspaper he edited during that May's General Strike.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Margaret Fuller photo

“Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

"A Short Essay on Critics" in Art, Literature and the Drama (1858).

Alfred Horsley Hinton photo

“In selecting our subject…there are two factors which it should be borne in mind are essential, and these are Expression and Composition”

Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863–1908) British photographer

Source: Practical Pictorial Photography, 1898, Methods - The practical application of means to end, p. 16

Dinah Craik photo

“Everybody is forever saying that the essay is dead. This is always said in essays.”

John Leonard (1939–2008) American critic, writer, and commentator

"Funny Things to Think About and Eat" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E0D7123BF937A35754C0A964948260&scp=50&sq=&st=nyt, The New York Times (4 July 1982)

Related topics