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Books without the knowledge of life are useless.

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
Without
Life
Useless
Books
Knowledge
Book

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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
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He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
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Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood it is the crime of cowards.
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To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
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Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
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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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To build is to be robbed.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced if of ill-fortune, to be pitied and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.
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You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
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It is better a man should be abused than forgotten.
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Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
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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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In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.
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Celestial wisdom calms the mind.
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Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
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It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.
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Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
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