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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

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
Sorry
Communication
Losing
Nations
Language
Lost
Pedigree
Always
Languages
Tongue

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There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
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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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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
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Your manuscript is both good and original but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
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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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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
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He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
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Hunger is never delicate they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
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Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
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Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
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People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
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This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
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An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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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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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.
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