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Knock the 't' off the 'can't.'

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
Insightful
Knock
Confidence

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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A fallible being will fail somewhere.
Samuel Johnson
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Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
Samuel Johnson
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The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.
Samuel Johnson
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The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
Samuel Johnson
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The violence of war admits no distinction the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Samuel Johnson
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Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
Samuel Johnson
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Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.
Samuel Johnson
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Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Samuel Johnson
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We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Samuel Johnson
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The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
Samuel Johnson
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
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I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.
Samuel Johnson
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Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
Samuel Johnson
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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.
Samuel Johnson
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Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
Samuel Johnson
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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.
Samuel Johnson
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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.
Samuel Johnson
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Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
Samuel Johnson
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The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
Samuel Johnson