A Quote by Samuel Johnson

It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Affectation Afterwards Complete Developed Distinguish Ease Easy Habit Indeed Once Rarely Style Writes

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

When a new writer defends his "style," the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn't an artifice. Real style - voice - arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer's character. When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation - an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example.

Bill Roorbach

Finding your own style is not easy, but once found it brings complete happiness. It gives you self-confidence, always.

Yves Saint Laurent

When the mind has once formed the habit of holding cheerful, happy, prosperous pictures, it will not be easy to form the opposite habit.

Orison Swett Marden

Poems are not easy to start, and they're not easy to finish. There's a great pleasure in - I wouldn't say ease, but maybe kind of a fascinated ease that accompanies the actual writing of the poem. I find it very difficult to get started.

Billy Collins

When you get into that habit of winning, it gets - I don't know if you call it contagious - but it gets to be a habit. She's developed an unbelievable habit.

Venus Williams

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.

Thomas B. Macaulay

I never joined the army because at ease was never that easy to me. Seemed rather uptight still. I don't relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back. That does not equal ease. At ease was not being in the military. I am at ease, bro, because I am not in the military.

Mitch Hedberg

Habit is a powerful means of advancement, and the habit of eternal vigilance and diligence, rarely fails to bring a substantial reward.

Lewis Howard Latimer

Truth be told, exercising is easy once you make it a habit.

Chloe Madeley

Ease leads to habit, as success to ease. He lives by rule who lives himself to please.

George Crabbe

My technique is laughable at times. I have developed a style of my own, I suppose, which creeps around. I don't have to have too much technique for it. I've developed the parts of my technique that are useful to me. I'll never be a very fast guitar player. I don't really know what to say about my style. There's always a melodic intent in there.

David Gilmour

Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so thathe insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished.

James Boswell

The flow that I use, I really developed my rap style in the mid '80s based on Grandmaster Caz from the Cold Crush Brothers, from listening to him. That's like really who I pretty much patterned my style from and I just really took it to another level once I had the opportunity to get out amongst the world myself.

Big Daddy Kane

People aren't religious because it's easy not to be. Like anything, it's habitual, and once it's a habit it's no longer hard.

Matisyahu

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.