Quote

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.

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
Last
Pleasing
Upon
Endeavor
Hope
Consequence
Live
Duty
Always
Ought
Somebody
Greatest
Endeavours
Pleasure
Exerted

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Order is a lovely nymph, the child of Beauty and Wisdom her attendants are Comfort, Neatness, and Activity her abode is the valley of happiness: she is always to be found when sought for, and never appears so lovely as when contrasted with her opponent, Disorder.
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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
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Nature never gives everything at once.
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Words are but the signs of ideas.
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Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
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All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
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The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
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At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
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No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.
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It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
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The king who makes war on his enemies tenderly distresses his subjects most cruelly.
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Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.
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There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.
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Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
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Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant
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