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Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible.

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
Contemptible
Despised
Despise
Rarely
Age
Hate

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There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.
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Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
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Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected that which elevates must always surprise.
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Samuel Johnson
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
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In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
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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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The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson
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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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A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
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I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.
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There are certain topicks which are never exhausted. Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be enamoured it meets them, however often they occur, with the same ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his mistress, and parts from them with the same regret when they can no longer be enjoyed.
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You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.
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Labor's face is wrinkled with the wind, and swarthy with the sun.
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As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
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He who is extravagant will quickly become poor and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.
Samuel Johnson
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I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
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Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue for it takes the short cut to everything.
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