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In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Flow
Prodigies
Shows
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Life
Wise
Swift
Streams
Eyes
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Fears
Last
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Dotage
Eye
Brave
Expires
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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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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A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
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He who is extravagant will quickly become poor and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.
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All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.
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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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The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
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There are occasions on which all apology is rudeness.
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Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.
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Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
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He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
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It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.
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Social sorrow loses half its pain.
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Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
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You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
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Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
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One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
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A person loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal.
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A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.
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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.
Samuel Johnson