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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Almost
Wish
Cannot
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Men
Cunning
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Wise
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Every other enjoyment malice may destroy every other panegyric envy may withhold but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
Samuel Johnson
In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.
Samuel Johnson
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
Samuel Johnson
It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
Samuel Johnson
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
Samuel Johnson
Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Samuel Johnson
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.
Samuel Johnson
Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.
Samuel Johnson
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
Samuel Johnson
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
Samuel Johnson
