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Example is always more efficacious than precept.

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
Example
Always
Efficacious
Precept
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I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
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As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.
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What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
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It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.
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What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
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Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned
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To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar
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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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Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy knowledge is not always present.
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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.
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Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
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No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
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In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.
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The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
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Languages are the pedigree of nations.
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Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson