Quote

It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Mean
Another
Legs
Things
Two
Boys
Time
May
Learned
Best
Stand
Firsts
Shall
Breeches
Matter
Education
Disputing
First
Teach
Bare
Children
Child
Considering

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Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.
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It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
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Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
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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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Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.
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No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
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All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.
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Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
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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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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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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
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In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.
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The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
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There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.
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Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
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