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A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
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
State
Occur
Cannot
Provide
States
Prison
Country
Laws
Things
Authority
Thousand
Ought
Interpose
Law
Governed
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
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None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
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The process is the reality.
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I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
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An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
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Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
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A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
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Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
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Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge Rome of elegance
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It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.
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To build is to be robbed.
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A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
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London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
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Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
Samuel Johnson
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
Samuel Johnson
A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company
Samuel Johnson
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.
Samuel Johnson
Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.
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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
