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Wickedness is always easier than virtue for it takes the short cut to everything.

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
Evil
Everything
Always
Wickedness
Short
Cutting
Easier
Virtue
Takes

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Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
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People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
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It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.
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The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
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Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
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Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.
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Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
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I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits
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Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
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No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
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When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
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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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The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.
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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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Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage
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Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
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To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others
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