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All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.

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
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Translator
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Taste
Improves
Public
Error
Truth
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May
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Refines
Errors
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Valuable
Rectify
Criticism
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Judgment
Benefactors

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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
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Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.
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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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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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A woman of fortune being used the handling of money, spends it judiciously but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it, that she throws it away with great profusion.
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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
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The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.
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The vicious count their years virtuous, their acts.
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
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Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
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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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If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
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Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
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I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
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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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In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
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Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.
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The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
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Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions
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