I respect Millar, sir: he has raised the price of literature.
Interpretation
The quote acknowledges Millar's contributions to literature and the financial value he has added to it.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson expresses his admiration for Millar, recognizing that his work has not only enhanced the literary landscape but has also elevated the commercial worth of literature itself. This implies that Millar's efforts have allowed literature to gain greater respect and importance, suggesting that literary excellence can coexist with financial success.
In practice
During a book club meeting, to illustrate the impact of successful authors.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
It is much simpler to buy books than to read them and easier to read them than to absorb their contents.
Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going.
People think of black English as ungrammatical, but it bears the same relationship to standard English as contemporary Hebrew does to ancient Hebrew.
Communication of science as subject-matter has so far outrun in education the construction of a scientific habit of mind that to some extent the natural common sense of mankind has been interfered with to its detriment.
I would like to be a terrorist for music education - to make a complete reform, all over the world.
Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.
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