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Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

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
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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Laziness
Men
Idle
Generally
Calling
Intimidate
Industry
Intimidation
Ready
Sloth
Impossible
Intimidating
Difficult
Satisfy

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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
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Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom.
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A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
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A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
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I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
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If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
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Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
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When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.
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I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
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My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.
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To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them for they prove, at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood.
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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.
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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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Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.
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To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
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If you are idle, be not solitary if you are solitary be not idle.
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It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.
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Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.
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It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.
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Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
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