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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
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Samuel Johnson
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Every man has something to do which he neglects, every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.
Samuel Johnson
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Samuel Johnson
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Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Samuel Johnson
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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.
Samuel Johnson
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It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Samuel Johnson
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The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.
Samuel Johnson
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The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
Samuel Johnson
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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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A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.
Samuel Johnson
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Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.
Samuel Johnson
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Don't tell me of deception a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.
Samuel Johnson
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Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.
Samuel Johnson
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
Samuel Johnson
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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Samuel Johnson
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
Samuel Johnson
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Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson
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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Samuel Johnson
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A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
Samuel Johnson
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It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
Samuel Johnson