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Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is but it is not easy to tell what it is.

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
Tell
Light
Much
Poetry
Easier
Easy

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He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
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What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
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Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
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The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.
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Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
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Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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Whatever you have spend less.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.
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He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
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Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.
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Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.
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Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
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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.
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Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.
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He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
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To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
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A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
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[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
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