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It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God whether God is just whether this life is the only state of existence.

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
Seriously
Existence
State
Whether
States
Enquiring
Men
Forbear
Life
Astonishing

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The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
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Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
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He who endeavors to please must appear pleased.
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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.
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Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.
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Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
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Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
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As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.
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Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
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Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
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The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
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The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.
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Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
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The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
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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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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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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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Faults and defects every work of man must have.
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The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
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Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
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