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It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.
Samuel Johnson
How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Samuel Johnson
To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
Samuel Johnson
An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
Samuel Johnson
The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
Samuel Johnson
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
Samuel Johnson
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.
Samuel Johnson
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
Samuel Johnson
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
Samuel Johnson
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson
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
A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.
Samuel Johnson
Babies do not want to hear about babies they like to be told of giants and castles.
Samuel Johnson
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson
Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
Samuel Johnson
Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.
Samuel Johnson
Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.
Samuel Johnson
