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Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.

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
Expressed
Wit
Often
Thought
Wells
Well
Never

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Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.
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An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
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So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
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There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
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Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
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...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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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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The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
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The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
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Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
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Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
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Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.
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Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
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You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.
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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
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To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.
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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
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