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A mere literary man is a dull man a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

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
Business
Commerce
Make
Literary
Men
Dull
Selfish
Mere
Respect
Respectability
Literature
Solely
United
Respectable

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Every man is of importance to himself.
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There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
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The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
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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.
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Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused
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Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
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In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
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He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.
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Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
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I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
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Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
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In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
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Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
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The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
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Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
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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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If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
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