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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
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Popular
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Alters
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Grows
Perish
Practice
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Words
Expressed
Must
Customs
Proportion
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
Samuel Johnson
When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
Samuel Johnson
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.
Samuel Johnson
I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him but angry he is, no doubt and he is loath to be angry at himself.
Samuel Johnson
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Samuel Johnson
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
Samuel Johnson
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Samuel Johnson
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
Samuel Johnson
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.
Samuel Johnson
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.
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
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Samuel Johnson
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
Samuel Johnson
Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.
Samuel Johnson
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
Samuel Johnson
As long as one lives he will have need of repentance.
Samuel Johnson
No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
Samuel Johnson
At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
Samuel Johnson
