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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

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
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Inspirational
Littles
Little
Accustom
Matter
Matters
Words
Bigs
Language
Use

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The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous yet fame, power, and riches, are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependence, and poverty of greater numbers.
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All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.
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Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre
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Babies do not want to hear about babies they like to be told of giants and castles.
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Misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation.
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To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.
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He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans we may therefore subject them to government.
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Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
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What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
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To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them for they prove, at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood.
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We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.
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A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
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The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
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Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
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There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.
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Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. - John V. Lindsay No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
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Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience you will find it a calamity.
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Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
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