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
Men
Expose
Convinced
Doubt
Heaven
Whether
Better
Must
Delegation
Would
Martyrdom

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No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.
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It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.
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I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.
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Your aspirations are your possibilities.
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The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.
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I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him but angry he is, no doubt and he is loath to be angry at himself.
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
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Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
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The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
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What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s
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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.
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A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
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None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
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The vicious count their years virtuous, their acts.
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All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
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Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
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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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No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
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