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The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.

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
Greater
Wish
Obtaining
Often
Completion
Found
Expecting
Every
Enjoyment
Disappointment
Almost
Pleasure

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Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.
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Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
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He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
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Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
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Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
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Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
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We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.
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A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
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The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
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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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When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
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We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.
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The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
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A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
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