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I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

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
Crowds
Company
Enjoy
Live
Much
Jollity
Shun
Crowd

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.
Samuel Johnson
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Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terror in spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty: in winter, compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailing of hunger and the cries of the creation in distress
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The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.
Samuel Johnson
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
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Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
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Pleasure itself is not a vice
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Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
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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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Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
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So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
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That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
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Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.
Samuel Johnson
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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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Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
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The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.
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I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits
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How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
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