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Samuel Johnson Quotes about Art

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The true art of memory is the art of attention.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1787). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...”, p.175

In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.167

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1888). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.502

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 389 (24 April 1779)

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 5 Apr. 1776)

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Lives of the Most Eminent Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.120

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.416

I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.183, Canongate Books

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

Samuel Johnson (1821). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.373