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This is my history like all other histories, a narrative of misery.

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
Misery
History
Like
Histories
Narrative

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.
Samuel Johnson
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Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected that which elevates must always surprise.
Samuel Johnson
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He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
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Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
Samuel Johnson
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Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.
Samuel Johnson
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Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
Samuel Johnson
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No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
Samuel Johnson
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Foppery is never cured it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
Samuel Johnson
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If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
Samuel Johnson
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What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
Samuel Johnson
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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
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Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson
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We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
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I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him but angry he is, no doubt and he is loath to be angry at himself.
Samuel Johnson
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People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
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When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
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Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
Samuel Johnson
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Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
Samuel Johnson
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There are occasions on which all apology is rudeness.
Samuel Johnson
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Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
Samuel Johnson