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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
Dissimulation
Defamation
Slander
Coward
Revenge
Defense

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Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood it is the crime of cowards.
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No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
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The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.
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Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
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Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
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A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
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Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
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A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
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...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
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Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
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An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
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Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
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Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
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Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
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The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
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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.
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When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford.
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