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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.

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
Giving
Ennui
Men
Permitted
Time
Tedious
Lays
Instance
Hours
Cannot
Give
Contriving

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Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
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Apologies are seldom of any use.
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
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Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.
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A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct
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Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
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All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told and the adage is verified in your place and my favour but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us wiser.
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When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
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The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.
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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
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Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
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The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
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Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
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Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
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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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No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
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If you are idle, be not solitary if you are solitary be not idle.
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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