Quote

The mind is refrigerated by interruption the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject the reader is weary, he suspects not why and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

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
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Away
Subject
Diligently
Book
Subjects
Interruptions
Mind
Reader
Diligence
Students
Throws
Thoughts
Suspects
Principles
Studied
Lasts
Weary
Diverted
Last
Principle
Interruption

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.
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No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
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Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
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Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
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Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
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As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.
Samuel Johnson
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Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge.
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One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.
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Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
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Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
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Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
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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.
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To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it and seeing one is quite enough.
Samuel Johnson
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A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
Samuel Johnson
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Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game, Where wasted nations raise a single name And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret, From age to age in everlasting debt Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
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Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
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Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
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.
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The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
Samuel Johnson