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Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Life
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
Samuel Johnson
These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.
Samuel Johnson
Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.
Samuel Johnson
[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
Samuel Johnson
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
Samuel Johnson
The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
Samuel Johnson
I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.
Samuel Johnson
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
Samuel Johnson
Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
Samuel Johnson
It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow.
Samuel Johnson
The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence.
Samuel Johnson
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.
Samuel Johnson
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
Samuel Johnson
He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.
Samuel Johnson
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Samuel Johnson
