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The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Never
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Jest
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Another
Expectation
Always
Wit
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
Samuel Johnson
Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terror in spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty: in winter, compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailing of hunger and the cries of the creation in distress
Samuel Johnson
Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
Samuel Johnson
As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.
Samuel Johnson
Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
Samuel Johnson
There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
Samuel Johnson
Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
Samuel Johnson
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today
Samuel Johnson
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
Samuel Johnson
Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.
Samuel Johnson
The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.
Samuel Johnson
They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.
Samuel Johnson
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Samuel Johnson
Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
Samuel Johnson
Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.
Samuel Johnson
