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A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
Samuel Johnson
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
Samuel Johnson
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
Samuel Johnson
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
Samuel Johnson
A vow is a snare for sin
Samuel Johnson
Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is but it is not easy to tell what it is.
Samuel Johnson
Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
Samuel Johnson
As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.
Samuel Johnson
A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.
Samuel Johnson
It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
Samuel Johnson
The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
Samuel Johnson
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Samuel Johnson
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
In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, What is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.
Samuel Johnson
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
Samuel Johnson
If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
Samuel Johnson
He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
Samuel Johnson
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
The process is the reality.
Samuel Johnson
