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
Would
Martyrdom
Men
Expose
Convinced
Doubt
Heaven
Whether
Better
Must
Delegation

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Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.
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Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
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The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.
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If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies.
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Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.
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Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist.
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
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Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
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The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
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Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.
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As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.
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All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
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The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.
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Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
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