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Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

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
Greater
Understanding
Allotted
Science
Providence
Even
Improve
Expect
Strength
Single
Study

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
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Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
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The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
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There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
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Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
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Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.
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Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
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There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
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It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
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The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
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Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue!
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The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.
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No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
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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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A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.
Samuel Johnson
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It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
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I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
Samuel Johnson
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Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
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Virtue is too often merely local.
Samuel Johnson