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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Samuel Johnson
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No man was ever great by imitation.
Samuel Johnson
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The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
Samuel Johnson
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I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
Samuel Johnson
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When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Samuel Johnson
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No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
Samuel Johnson
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To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
Samuel Johnson
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The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Samuel Johnson
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ESSAY - A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.
Samuel Johnson
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Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
Samuel Johnson
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Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
Samuel Johnson
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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
Samuel Johnson
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Words are but the signs of ideas.
Samuel Johnson
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Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Samuel Johnson
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
Samuel Johnson
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The greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be sooner hired to be silent.
Samuel Johnson
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I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
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There are charms made only for distant admiration.
Samuel Johnson
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It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
Samuel Johnson
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Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
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Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Samuel Johnson
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It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson
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Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
Samuel Johnson
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He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Samuel Johnson
