Quote

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.

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
Either
Possesses
Imagine
Superior
Quality
Superiors
Every
Qualities
Kind
Sees
Men
Degree
Love
Degrees
Allotted
World
Rest
Prompted

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Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
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A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
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No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
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About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
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Love is only one of many passions.
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I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
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No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.
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Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
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Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
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Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
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He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
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Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
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A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
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Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
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Self-love is a busy prompter.
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In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
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The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
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Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
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Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.
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Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
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