Quote

If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.

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
Heaven
Whether
Better
Must
Delegation
Would
Martyrdom
Men
Expose
Convinced
Doubt

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Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
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The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.
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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.
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The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
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The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.
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To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies.
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Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
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There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
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Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.
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Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
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Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
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None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
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Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
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