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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
Activity
Broken
Action
Brighten
Soul
Cleanse
Heart
Heartache
Rust
Mere
Sorrow

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The whole power of cunning is privative to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.
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A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit
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There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.
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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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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
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Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
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Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
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Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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Virtue is too often merely local.
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Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality they discourse like angels, but they live like men.
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No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
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Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
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The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.
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Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
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The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today
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Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
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The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
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By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
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