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The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
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God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?
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By writing, you learn to write.
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When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
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Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence by asserting that all conditions are leveled by death a position which, however it may defect the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched.
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Art hath an enemy called ignorance.
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Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
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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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Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
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A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
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A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
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No man hates him at whom he can laugh.
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Applause abates diligence.
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To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
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I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
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Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
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Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
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The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.
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The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.
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I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.
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