Quote

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Heart
Points
Blockhead
Never
Wounds
Harass
Generous
Dart
Bitter
Blockheads
Grief
Griefs
Fate
Jest
Deep
Distress
Sure
Insult
Scornful

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The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy their real faults are immediately detected and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added.
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The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
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Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
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We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
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God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?
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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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Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.
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He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
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All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.
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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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The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.
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Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage
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Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
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The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
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With what hope can we endeavor to persuade the ladies that the time spent at the toilet is lost in vanity.
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It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
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What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.
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It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
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Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it
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