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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Poverty
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Superfluities
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Where there is emulation, there will be vanity where there is vanity, there will be folly.
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The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
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Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
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The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.
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Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
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Round numbers are always false.
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Poetry cannot be translation
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...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
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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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I will be conquered I will not capitulate.
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An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.
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Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.
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I fly from pleasure, said the prince, because pleasure has ceased to please I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.
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All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told and the adage is verified in your place and my favour but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us wiser.
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None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.
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It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed.
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Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.
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Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
Samuel Johnson