quote · Legacy record
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.
Approximate author period: c. 1746 AD · early modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Samuel Johnson
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1746 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1709–1784)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) (1922 AD)
Printed page 657 · quotation 12 · Samuel Johnson · The Adventurer. No. 137.
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