Samuel Johnson Quotes

In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.

It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men, but also to advance civilization.

All that a university or final highest school. can do for us is still but what the first school began doing--teach us to read. We learn to read in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the books themselves. It depends on what we read, after all manner of professors have done their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

So few grow, because so few study.

Book - Learning : The dunce's derisive term for all knowledge that transcends his own impertinent ignorance.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. . . . We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books” — join in the cry.

Education is the single most important job of the human race.

Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.

No man was ever so completely skilled in the conduct of life, as not to receive new information from age and experience.

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.

I grow old learning something new every day.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you're focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

I can't say it enough that learning how to learn is one of the greatest skills anyone can have. It's why I advocate that everyone go to college.

Education is an admirable thing.

If it is noticed that much of my outside work concerns itelf with libraries, there is an extremely good reason for this. I think that the better part of my education, almost as important as that secured in the schools and the universities, came from libraries.

Reading maketh a full man.

The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.

I've always been a student, so I want to learn.

Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.

In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.

Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment.

The library furnished our dreams, helped us shape our ambitions, made up people of books and ideas and grand designs.

Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.

I grow old, ever learning many things.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.