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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

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
Commit
Faults
Men
Suspect
Suspects

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Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
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How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.
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In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
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Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.
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Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
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Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
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Round numbers are always false.
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Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.
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Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.
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There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.
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Truth allows no choice.
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Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
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Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.
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Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.
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I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
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It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation.
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