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As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

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
Peace
War
Ends
Idleness
Idle
Busy
Ultimate
Purpose

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The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Social sorrow loses half its pain.
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The process is the reality.
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A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife every human being in such places is a spy.
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If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.
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You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.
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We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it.
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A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
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No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
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Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
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Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
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Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
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A woman of fortune being used the handling of money, spends it judiciously but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion.
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
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