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Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
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
Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
Samuel Johnson
Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.
Samuel Johnson
In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.
Samuel Johnson
Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.
Samuel Johnson
Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
Samuel Johnson
Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
When two Eglishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.
Samuel Johnson
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
Samuel Johnson
We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.
Samuel Johnson
Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
Samuel Johnson
His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed.
Samuel Johnson
Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.
Samuel Johnson
What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
Samuel Johnson
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.
Samuel Johnson
If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies.
Samuel Johnson
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?
Samuel Johnson
Learn that the present hour alone is man's.
Samuel Johnson
