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Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.

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
Study
Church
Christ
Soul
Must
Mind
Men
Prance
Souls

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The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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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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Riches, perhaps, do not so often produce crimes as incite accusers.
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I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
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Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
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Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
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Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.
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The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it.
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Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
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Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
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It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.
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In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.
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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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The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
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Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
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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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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
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Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
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We go from anticipation to anticipation, not from satisfaction to satisfaction.
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