Wheresoe'er I turn my view,All is strange, yet nothing new:Endless labor all along,Endless labor to be wrong:Phrase that Time has flung away;Uncouth words in disarray,Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet,Ode, and elegy, and sonnet. — Samuel Johnson Share this quote Post on X Facebook Download image Copy quote Copy link Share… Another quote → Topics Poetry
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed. The Idler (1758)
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing. The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)
Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'. George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)
I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds. Michael Faraday