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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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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Bookseller
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.
Samuel Johnson
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The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
Samuel Johnson
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Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
Samuel Johnson
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Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.
Samuel Johnson
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The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.
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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If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or drown at last.
Samuel Johnson
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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
Samuel Johnson
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Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.
Samuel Johnson
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The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
Samuel Johnson
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The insolence of wealth will creep out.
Samuel Johnson
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
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No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration.
Samuel Johnson
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So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
Samuel Johnson
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My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.
Samuel Johnson
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If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
Samuel Johnson
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Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
Samuel Johnson
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Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
Samuel Johnson
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Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
Samuel Johnson
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To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others
Samuel Johnson