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I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

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
Desire
Money
Look
Looks
Inducement
Writing
Dictionary
Work
Motive
Love
Fame
Upon

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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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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You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.
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Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.
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It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
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A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
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Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
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All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
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Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist.
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If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
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Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
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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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If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
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He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.
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It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.
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It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
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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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Advice is offensive, it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
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