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The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.

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
Damnable
Expense
Fleeting
Expenses
Ridiculous
Position
Pleasure

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It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.
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The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
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Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
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A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.
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Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
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Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
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He who endeavors to please must appear pleased.
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He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans we may therefore subject them to government.
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A fallible being will fail somewhere.
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What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
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I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.
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Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
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An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
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