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

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People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.
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Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
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It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.
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A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
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Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
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Riches, perhaps, do not so often produce crimes as incite accusers.
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Security will produce danger.
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Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.
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Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue for it takes the short cut to everything.
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The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.
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To be free it is not enough to beat the system, one must beat the system every day
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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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An exotic and irrational entertainment.
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He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
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It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
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Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
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I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
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The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
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He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
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