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So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
Samuel Johnson -
As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.
Samuel Johnson
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Was ever poet so trusted before?
Samuel Johnson -
There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.
Samuel Johnson -
Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short Summer - man a flower, He dies - alas! how soon he dies!
Samuel Johnson -
Let observation with extensive viewSurvey mankind, from China to Peru.
Samuel Johnson -
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
Samuel Johnson -
I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.
Samuel Johnson
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All this wealth excludes but one evil,-poverty.
Samuel Johnson -
Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
Samuel Johnson -
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Samuel Johnson -
I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
Samuel Johnson -
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
Samuel Johnson -
A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
Samuel Johnson
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
Samuel Johnson -
PATRON, n. One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.
Samuel Johnson -
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson -
A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
Samuel Johnson -
Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice, The stage but echoes back the public's voice; The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson -
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Samuel Johnson
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Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Samuel Johnson -
'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
Samuel Johnson -
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.
Samuel Johnson -
It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
Samuel Johnson