Quote

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

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
Cannot
Abuse
May
Tables
Writing
Critics
Made
Tragedy
Make
Criticism
Trade
Scold
Though
Carpenter
Write
Table

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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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As any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice.
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Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
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Suspicion is very often a useless pain.
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The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.
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Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]
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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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Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.
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Our aspirations are our possibilities.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
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Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef.
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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
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