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I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Give
Happiness
Government
Rather
Live
Half
Giving
Moment
Would
Individual
Moments
Another
Guinea
Form
Politics

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Social sorrow loses half its pain.
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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit
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To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.
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Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue!
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Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
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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.
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Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
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[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.
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That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
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Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
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We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
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The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.
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All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.
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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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There is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber.
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Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.
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Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
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Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it
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