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As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.

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
Men
Tells
Goodness
Greatest
Worst
Falsehoods
Evil
Liar
Doe
Falsehood
May
Liars
Good
Truths

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It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.
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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
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The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
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Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.
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As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
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Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
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As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow.
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Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre
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Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts or slow decline Our social comforts drop away.
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The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.
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The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.
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All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
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Idleness and timidity often despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavors, by showing what has already been performed.
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No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration.
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
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A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.
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Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
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If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.
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No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.
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The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.
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