Quote

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.

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
Men
Attention
Reputation
Herd
Love
Common
Appear
Herds
World
Fear
Rise
Attracted
Art
Projects
Compelled
Discriminates
Others
Fame
Hopeless
Pretensions
May
However
Hopes
Imagines
Every
Imagine
Mortals
Persuaded
Good
Quality
Project
Pretension

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Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves
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People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.
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Consider what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends. We hang a thief for stealing a sheep but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep and farm and all from the right owner.
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Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
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Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
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I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
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Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
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Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
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Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.
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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
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Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
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So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
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Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
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Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur
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Revenge is an act of passion vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged crimes are avenged.
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I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
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He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
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The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
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He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
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