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Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
Samuel Johnson
He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
Samuel Johnson
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing.
Samuel Johnson
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Samuel Johnson
The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy their real faults are immediately detected and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added.
Samuel Johnson
The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
Samuel Johnson
Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice other intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions of mind. That which soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another, but to the favor of the covetous bring money, and nothing is denied.
Samuel Johnson
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson
Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.
Samuel Johnson
Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
Samuel Johnson
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
Samuel Johnson
When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Samuel Johnson
Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
Samuel Johnson
Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
Samuel Johnson
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.
Samuel Johnson
Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
Samuel Johnson
