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Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.

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
Things
Since
Appearing
Men
High
Obliged
Happiness
Promote
Values
Excellence
Upon
Careful
Real
Minds
Unwary
Every
Value
Conferred
Mind
Virtue
Mislead

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One of the amusements of idleness is reading without fatigue of close attention and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read.
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There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.
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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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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
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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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Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions
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Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
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To be of no Church is dangerous.
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No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.
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Hope is necessary in every condition.
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Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
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Faults and defects every work of man must have.
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As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
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How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
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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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Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
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If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
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So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
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