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Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Dr Johnson
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Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary but yet it is not easy to avoid.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
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Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
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A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
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Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
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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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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
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There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
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Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.
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In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
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Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
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Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
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There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
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The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence.
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I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
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