Quote

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Choices
Mouths
Scent
Make
Fruit
Autumn
Men
Blessing
Blessings
Time
Spring
Cups
Flower
Fill
Choice
Flowers
Delighting
Taste
Content
Nile
Source
Mouth
Fruits

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Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
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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.
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The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercized in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.
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The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.
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Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.
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This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
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We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.
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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.
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Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
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The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.
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Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused
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Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.
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Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.
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Words are but the signs of ideas.
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
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To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
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Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
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There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
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