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Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Existence
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Eccentricity

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Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.
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Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.
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Virtue is too often merely local.
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In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.
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A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
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Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
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All envy is proportionate to desire we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us.
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Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
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I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.
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Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
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No man hates him at whom he can laugh.
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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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The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.
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The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.
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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 fallible being will fail somewhere.
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