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Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.

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
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Less
Depravity
Tenderness
Stupidity
Proof
Parts

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Our aspirations are our possibilities.
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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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Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
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When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
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Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
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To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
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Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,- Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
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He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.
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Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it.
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The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.
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Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
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The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.
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He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
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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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