“A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give a conversationalist a fair chance.”

Samuel Johnson (1878), repr. In John Morley (ed.) English Men of Letters (New York: Harper, 1894) vol. 6, p. 60

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 "A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to gi…" by Leslie Stephen?

Leslie Stephen11

British author, literary critic, and first editor of the Di… 1832–1904

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

February Chapter The Peverel Papers - A yearbook of the countryside ed Julian Shuckburgh Century Hutchinson 1986
The Peverel Papers

“Trying too hard to be too good, even when trying to be bad, is too good for the bad, too bad for the good.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Imperfection http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21399/Imperfection <br class="br">From the poems written in English

“God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Vice and Virtue, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

“Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857), Ch. 5

“Man, whence is he? / Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 61; usually attributed to Doris Lessing in the form: "Man — who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!"
Misattributed

“Man, whence is he?
Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.”

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic

Der Mensch, wo ist er her?
Zu schlecht für einen Gott, zu gut fürs Ungefähr.
As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 61
Variant: Man — who is he? Too bad to be the work of God; Too good for the work of chance!