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As any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice.

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
Proportion
Popular
Speech
Alters
Opinion
Innovate
Grows
Perish
Practice
Custom
Words
Expressed
Must
Customs

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.
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Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
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I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
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Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge Rome of elegance
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Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
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Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson
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It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Samuel Johnson
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To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
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Hunger is never delicate they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
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Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
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Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
Samuel Johnson
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It is better a man should be abused than forgotten.
Samuel Johnson
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Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue!
Samuel Johnson
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
Samuel Johnson
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Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it
Samuel Johnson
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To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
Samuel Johnson
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Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.
Samuel Johnson
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Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
Samuel Johnson
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Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Samuel Johnson