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Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.

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
Defense
Dissimulation
Defamation
Slander
Coward
Revenge

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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
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Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.
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It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.
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There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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Women have two weapons - cosmetics and tears
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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 he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow.
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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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Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.
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There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
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Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.
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The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
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A person loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal.
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A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
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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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Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
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Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.
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