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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
Time
Progression
Life
Rational
Worthy
Purpose
Past
Better
Must
Always

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Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
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Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.
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Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
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The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another to dress and to undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the country.
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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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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.
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Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
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Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
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I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.
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Hope is necessary in every condition.
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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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Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
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Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
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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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The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.
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Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
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Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
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