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Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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Somebody
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Always
Difficulty
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Please

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All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
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Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.
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Hope is necessary in every condition.
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The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
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Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.
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Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
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The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
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We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
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All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
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It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
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It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.
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Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
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Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
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All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
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The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
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The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
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Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.
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Reason and truth will prevail at last
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