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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
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Fire
Propagate
Knowledge
Kindled
Desire
Afterwards
Firsts
Agent
First
External
Must
Agents
Always
Desires
Like
Increase

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Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.
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To build is to be robbed.
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What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.
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Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.
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And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
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Reason and truth will prevail at last
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
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Our aspirations are our possibilities.
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The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
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I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
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There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
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You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
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The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.
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Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned
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Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.
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When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
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Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is but it is not easy to tell what it is.
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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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