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Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]

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
Quod
Genus
Adorn
Untouched
Authorship
Touched
Left
Nothing

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Samuel Johnson
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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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Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.
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We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
Samuel Johnson
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Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
Samuel Johnson
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A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.
Samuel Johnson
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Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.
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By writing, you learn to write.
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Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.
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I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
Samuel Johnson
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We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure.
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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
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Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned
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How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Samuel Johnson
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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.
Samuel Johnson
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Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur
Samuel Johnson
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Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
Samuel Johnson
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Consider what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends. We hang a thief for stealing a sheep but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep and farm and all from the right owner.
Samuel Johnson
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No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.
Samuel Johnson