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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.

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
Ambush
Attorney
Relentless
Prey
Fell
Lays
Law
Ruffian

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We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
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Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
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A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
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It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation.
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.
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I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.
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It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
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Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.
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Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
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