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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

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
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Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Style
Elegant
Days
Attain
Wish
Nights
Night
Volume
Give
Wishes
Addison
Must
Whoever
Ostentatious
Giving
Familiar
Volumes
English
Coarse

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Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
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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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As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.
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To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
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No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
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Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost must always end in pain.
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
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There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey.
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There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
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Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
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The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
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I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
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Among the calamities of war may be numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.
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We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
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