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Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
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As long as one lives he will have need of repentance.
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
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I have already enjoyed too much give me something to desire.
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In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.
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There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
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In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
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Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
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Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost must always end in pain.
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Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]
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Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
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Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained
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Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
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A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.
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It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.
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Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
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