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Let him go abroad to a distant country let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.

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
Abroad
Distant
Devil
Known
Evil
Place
Country

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In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.
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We often need reminding even if we do not often need educating.
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Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
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That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
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The botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.
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Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
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A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.
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Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
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He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
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There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
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I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
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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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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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Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
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Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
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He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.
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A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.
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