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Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves

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
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Much
Sink
Accustomed
Solitude
Requires
Dangerous
Study
State
States

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The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today
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Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.
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Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.
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No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration.
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I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
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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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Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
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A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.
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Riches, perhaps, do not so often produce crimes as incite accusers.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
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In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, What is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.
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Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
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To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
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Many leave the labours of half their life to their executors and to chance, because they will not send them abroad unfinished, and are unable to finish them, having prescribed to themselves such a degree of exactness as human diligence can scarcely ontain.
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