Samuel Johnson Quotes
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The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
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A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
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We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
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Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
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Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
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This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
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A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
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The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.
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To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
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When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
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Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
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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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It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
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There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
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It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
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No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
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Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
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Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.