“A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.”

—  Samuel Johnson

1783, p. 501
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it." by Samuel Johnson?
Samuel Johnson photo
Samuel Johnson 362
English writer 1709–1784

Related quotes

James Macpherson photo

“Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) p. 1207.
Criticism

Ellen G. White photo

“The Saviour would have passed through the agony of Calvary that one might be saved in His kingdom. He will never abandon one for whom He has died.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

The Desire of Ages http://egwdatabase.whiteestate.org/nxt/gateway.dll/egw-comp/section00000.htm/book01247.htm/chapter01301.htm, Ch. 52, p. 480)
Conflict of the Ages series

“I would have remembered the good stuff.
Nobody ever remembers the good stuff.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Roger Bacon photo

“Argument is conclusive… but… it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may never rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns, his hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) medieval philosopher and theologian

Cited in: Carol A. Dingle (2000) Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization. p. 21

Robert Owen photo

“The will of man has no power whatever over his opinions; he must, and ever did, and ever will, believe what has been, is, or may be impressed on his mind by his predecessors, and the circumstances which surround him.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

A New View of Society (1813-1816)

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Girl on the Boat

The Girl on the Boat (1922)

“Strangely, he wasn’t scared at all. He was even more coldly calm, calmly analytical. And he knew that he would have to be if he was to stand a chance to win this war. If he was to win it, his mind would have to be his major weapon; firearms might win a battle, but never the war.”

Fredric Brown book The Mind Thing

Source: The Mind Thing (1961), Chapter 18 (p. 555)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

in a letter to his father, 1782

John Heyl Vincent photo

“He was Himself forsaken that none of His children might ever need to utter His cry of loneliness.”

John Heyl Vincent (1832–1920) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 73.

“As gentle a man as he was, as tender as was his heart, there was nothing weak about Michael Hosea. He was the strongest-minded man Joseph had ever met. A Man like Noah. A Man like the Shepherd-king David. A man after God's own heart.”

Francine Rivers (1947) American writer

Source: Redeeming Love

Related topics