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Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.

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
Rust
Mere
Sorrow
Activity
Broken
Action
Brighten
Soul
Cleanse
Heart
Heartache

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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
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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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There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
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A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.
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The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
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Apologies are seldom of any use.
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Small debts are like small shot they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon of loud noise, but little danger.
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Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game, Where wasted nations raise a single name And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret, From age to age in everlasting debt Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
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Babies do not want to hear about babies they like to be told of giants and castles.
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Your aspirations are your possibilities.
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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.
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It is however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached.
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Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
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There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
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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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At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
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Life protracted is protracted woe.
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A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
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