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I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits

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
Spirit
Would
Amputated
Limb
Recover
Limbs
Consent
Spirits

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There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey.
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It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.
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A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
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Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.
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Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.
Samuel Johnson
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An exotic and irrational entertainment.
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The insolence of wealth will creep out.
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Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
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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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Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
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In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.
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A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company
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As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.
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How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
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Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
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Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Samuel Johnson
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A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
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Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
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If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
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