Quote

Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.

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
Strain
Peculiar
Theme
Dejection
Moments
Lamentation
Certain
Complaint
May
Dwells
Every
Complaints
Men
Observed

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We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
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A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
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A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
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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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Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge Rome of elegance
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Foppery is never cured it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
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Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
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As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
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I have already enjoyed too much give me something to desire.
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
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He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
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Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
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Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
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I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.
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Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.
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