"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."
— Samuel Johnson

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

Sources

First attributed to Johnson 15 years posthumously in a footnote in William Seward's Biographiana (1799), but written in slightly different form in 1764, in a profile in The Scots Magazine of Charles Churchill.The Scots Magazine, Volume 26 — Quote Investigator, retrieved 17 May 2016