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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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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
Arrogance
Opposition
Unhappy
Privilege
Courage
Inflame
Strength
Malevolence
Consciousness
Excite
Made
Arrogant

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Virtue is too often merely local.
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The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.
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Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
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Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
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A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
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Truth allows no choice.
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If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
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Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.
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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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We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
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Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.
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It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
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A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
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Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
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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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No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
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