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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

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
Epitaph
Recollection
Oath
Memories
Upon
Writing
Men
Inscriptions

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before.
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A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
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Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
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Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
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Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
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Small debts are like small shot they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon of loud noise, but little danger.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.
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Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
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Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
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In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.
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Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
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One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.
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Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
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Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
Samuel Johnson
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When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
Samuel Johnson
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You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.
Samuel Johnson
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
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There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
Samuel Johnson