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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

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
Hard
Grows
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Written
Obscure
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Wiser
Reading
Seldom
Words
Complaining
Cannot
Sentences
Complains
Book
Understood
Deficiency

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There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.
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The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.
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We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.
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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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It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
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Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.
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A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.
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To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
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This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
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There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
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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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Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
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He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
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In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.
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A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.
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I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
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Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.
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The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today
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