Quote

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

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.
Samuel Johnson
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Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
Samuel Johnson
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It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
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That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson
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There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
Samuel Johnson
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I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
Samuel Johnson
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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
Samuel Johnson
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To be free it is not enough to beat the system, one must beat the system every day
Samuel Johnson
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Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
Samuel Johnson
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If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Samuel Johnson
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Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.
Samuel Johnson
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Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
Samuel Johnson
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He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
Samuel Johnson
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The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.
Samuel Johnson
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No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
Samuel Johnson
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He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
Samuel Johnson
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Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
Samuel Johnson
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His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed.
Samuel Johnson
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Samuel Johnson
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Misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation.
Samuel Johnson