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I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

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
Mad
Least
Father
Made
Vile
Life
Inherited
Sober
Melancholy

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Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
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Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
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Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
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Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.
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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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A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
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Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.
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Of those that spin out trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
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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 tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration.
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The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.
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All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
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Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
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Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.
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Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
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To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
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Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves
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Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
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