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If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

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
Great Moralist
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Primaries

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The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
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People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
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He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country.
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How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
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No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.
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It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.
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Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
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The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
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They who have already enjoyed the crowds and noise of the great city, know their desire to return is little more than the restlessness of a vacant mind, that they are not so much led by hope as driven by disgust, and wish rather to leave the country than to see the town.
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Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
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To build is to be robbed.
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An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
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What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?
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It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
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