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Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
Samuel Johnson
Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.
Samuel Johnson
They who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.
Samuel Johnson
A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
Samuel Johnson
A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.
Samuel Johnson
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford.
Samuel Johnson
He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
Misfortunes should always be expected.
Samuel Johnson
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Samuel Johnson
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Samuel Johnson
Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
Samuel Johnson
Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at least equal to that which any other kind of greatness can require, will be allowed by those who wish to elevate the character of a scholar since they cannot but know that every human acquisition is valuable in proportion to the difficulty of its attainment.
Samuel Johnson
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Samuel Johnson
No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.
Samuel Johnson
Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible.
Samuel Johnson
Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
Samuel Johnson
