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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.

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
Perceive
Curiosity
Content
Views
Knowledge
Inquires
Less
Fruitless
Stills
Perceives
Still
Superficial

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The future is bought with the present.
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Self-love is a busy prompter.
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Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.
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It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.
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In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.
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Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.
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Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
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Occupation alone is happiness.
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Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.
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When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.
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Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.
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As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.
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Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
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Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
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I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
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There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.
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Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?
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Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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