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A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.

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
Food
Disposed
Much
Doubtful
Men
Trembling
Remote
Enquiries
Culinary
Abstracted
Cooking
Creditor
Dinner
Enquiry
Meditation
Creditors

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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
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New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
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Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.
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The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.
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I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
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Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
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When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
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In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
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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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The insolence of wealth will creep out.
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Whatever advantage we snatch beyond a certain portion allotted us by at nature, is like money spent before it is due, which, at the time of regular payment, will be missed and regretted.
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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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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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Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
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Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
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Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
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