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Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

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
Well
Draws
Inclined
First
Except
Deceived
Believe
Months
Affairs
Never
Trust
Affair
Men
Tree
Breath
Feelings
Breaths
Wells
Manage
Firsts
Nine
Manages

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.
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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.
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Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
Samuel Johnson
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Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.
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Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
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Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
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Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
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Nature never gives everything at once.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.
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And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
Samuel Johnson
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Samuel Johnson
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People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.
Samuel Johnson
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A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
Samuel Johnson
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Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.
Samuel Johnson
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Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Johnson
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The first step to greatness is to be honest.
Samuel Johnson
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Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
Samuel Johnson
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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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He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
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The violence of war admits no distinction the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Samuel Johnson