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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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
Essayist
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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
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Samuel Johnson
It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.
Samuel Johnson
A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
Samuel Johnson
He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
Samuel Johnson
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
This is my history like all other histories, a narrative of misery.
Samuel Johnson
Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
Samuel Johnson
Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Samuel Johnson
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.
Samuel Johnson
No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.
Samuel Johnson
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Samuel Johnson
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant whose kettle has scarcely time to cool who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
Samuel Johnson
Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.
Samuel Johnson
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
Samuel Johnson
He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.
Samuel Johnson
Reason elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast space of this mighty fabric yet it comes far short of the real extent of our corporeal being.
Samuel Johnson
Men have been wise in many different modes but they have always laughed the same way.
Samuel Johnson
