Best Quotes by Samuel Johnson (Top 10)
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Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Samuel Johnson
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I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Samuel Johnson
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Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
Samuel Johnson
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Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Samuel Johnson
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
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When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Samuel Johnson
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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
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Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Samuel Johnson
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
More Samuel Johnson Quotes
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The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Samuel Johnson
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson
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Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
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You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
Samuel Johnson
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What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson
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To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Samuel Johnson
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Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Samuel Johnson
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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
Samuel Johnson
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Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
Samuel Johnson
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Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
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A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Samuel Johnson
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Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Samuel Johnson
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
Samuel Johnson
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Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Samuel Johnson
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The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson
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Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson
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A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Samuel Johnson
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One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Samuel Johnson
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While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Samuel Johnson
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Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson
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If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Samuel Johnson
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Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it
Samuel Johnson
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
Samuel Johnson
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Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Samuel Johnson
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If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.
Samuel Johnson
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He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
Samuel Johnson
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
Samuel Johnson
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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
Samuel Johnson
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Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.
Samuel Johnson
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
Samuel Johnson
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
Samuel Johnson
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As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
Samuel Johnson
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The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Samuel Johnson
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My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
Samuel Johnson
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If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
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In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson
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Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
Samuel Johnson
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Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Samuel Johnson
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Samuel Johnson
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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
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Language is the dress of thought.
Samuel Johnson
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A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.
Samuel Johnson
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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Samuel Johnson
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
Samuel Johnson
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Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
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Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
Samuel Johnson
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I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Samuel Johnson
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I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Samuel Johnson
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Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Samuel Johnson
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Samuel Johnson
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When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
Samuel Johnson
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Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
Samuel Johnson
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Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson
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In a man's letters his soul lies naked.
Samuel Johnson
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Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they live like men.
Samuel Johnson
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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Samuel Johnson
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Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
Samuel Johnson
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
Samuel Johnson
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Samuel Johnson
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
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A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Samuel Johnson
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Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
Samuel Johnson
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While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.
Samuel Johnson
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Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms
Samuel Johnson
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
Samuel Johnson
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
Samuel Johnson
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A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Samuel Johnson
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Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Samuel Johnson
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I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
Samuel Johnson
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Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Samuel Johnson
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Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Samuel Johnson
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Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.
Samuel Johnson
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Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
Samuel Johnson
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The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Samuel Johnson
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
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The true art of memory is the art of attention.
Samuel Johnson
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Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
Samuel Johnson
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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors
Samuel Johnson
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The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
Samuel Johnson
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson
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The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
Samuel Johnson
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Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Samuel Johnson
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Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
Samuel Johnson
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If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
Samuel Johnson
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The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.
Samuel Johnson
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Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.
Samuel Johnson
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A fishing pole is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool on the other
Samuel Johnson
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Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Samuel Johnson
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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
Samuel Johnson
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Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
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No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Samuel Johnson
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You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Samuel Johnson
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Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.
Samuel Johnson
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Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.
Samuel Johnson
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When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
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To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when not well.
Samuel Johnson
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To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
Samuel Johnson
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There are in every age new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.
Samuel Johnson
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The triumph of hope over experience.
Samuel Johnson
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
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The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
Samuel Johnson
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Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson
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Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.
Samuel Johnson
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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Samuel Johnson
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Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson
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The drama's laws the drama's patrons give.
For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson
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In all pleasures hope is a considerable part.
Samuel Johnson
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Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
Samuel Johnson
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Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom
Samuel Johnson
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Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Samuel Johnson
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The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.
Samuel Johnson
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Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.
Samuel Johnson
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Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. he whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
Samuel Johnson
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Samuel Johnson
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The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson
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I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Samuel Johnson
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He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Samuel Johnson
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Grief is a species of idleness.
Samuel Johnson
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Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own
Samuel Johnson
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Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance
Samuel Johnson
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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful
Samuel Johnson
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Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, sure the most bitter is a scornful jest
Samuel Johnson
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Samuel Johnson
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Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Samuel Johnson
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No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
Samuel Johnson
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The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Samuel Johnson
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Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Samuel Johnson
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Round numbers are always false.
Samuel Johnson
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The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence.
Samuel Johnson
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Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
Samuel Johnson
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Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
Samuel Johnson
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Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases
Samuel Johnson
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There are charms made only for distant admiration.
Samuel Johnson
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Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
Samuel Johnson
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Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
Samuel Johnson
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson
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Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.
Samuel Johnson
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A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Samuel Johnson
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
Samuel Johnson
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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
Samuel Johnson
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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
Samuel Johnson
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Samuel Johnson
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Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Samuel Johnson