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Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.

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
Without
Unintelligible
Lantern
Lanterns
Language
Light

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance.
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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.
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What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
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Life protracted is protracted woe.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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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.
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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.
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You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
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Foppery is never cured it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
Samuel Johnson
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Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.
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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.
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He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
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He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
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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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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Samuel Johnson
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This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
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In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
Samuel Johnson
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It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
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Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson
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A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.
Samuel Johnson