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Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.

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
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
May
Wells
Well
Conscience
Deserve
Friendship
Sacrifice
Pleasure
Though

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Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
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The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
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It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.
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Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
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So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
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An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
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He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
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No one ever became great by imitation.
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
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Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
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The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure.
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
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A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.
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This is my history like all other histories, a narrative of misery.
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The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.
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