Samuel Johnson Quotes
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There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
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A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
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'I fly from pleasure,' said the prince, 'because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.'
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
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Officious, innocent, sincere,Of every friendless name the friend.
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English superiority and American obedience.
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OATS - A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
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A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
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Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
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A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.
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Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
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I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.
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No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
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An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,And glides in modest innocence away.
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There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His memory is going.'
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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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It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'
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Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.'
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It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
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Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
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'Enlarge my life with multitude of days!'In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:Hides from himself his state, and shuns to knowThat life protracted is protracted woe.
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The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
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The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.