Quote

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.

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
Middle
Reading
Read
Inclination
May
Quit
Book
Quitting
Feel
Begins
Feels
Beginning
Men
Perhaps

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
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To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
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If the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
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What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s
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We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
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Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.
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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
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Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
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You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
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Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.
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Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.
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Applause abates diligence.
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Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
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What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.
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When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can afford.
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I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
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Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
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Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned
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Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
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