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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.

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
Must
Always
Time
Progression
Life
Rational
Worthy
Purpose
Past
Better

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Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.
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To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.
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Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
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Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
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Whatever you have spend less.
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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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Celestial wisdom calms the mind.
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Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
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Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.
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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
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The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
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Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
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The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
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Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
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Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
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It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.
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