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Samuel Johnson -
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A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Samuel Johnson
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I advised Chambers, and would advise every young man beginning to compose, to do it as fast as he can, to get a habit of having his mind to start promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy.
Samuel Johnson
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A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
Samuel Johnson
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Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author.
Samuel Johnson
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People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
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When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.
Samuel Johnson
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So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.
Samuel Johnson
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Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.
Samuel Johnson
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It is not difficult to conceive, however, that for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives. For without entering into refined speculations, it may be shown much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear.
Samuel Johnson
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Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.
Samuel Johnson
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Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.
Samuel Johnson
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Surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year.
Samuel Johnson
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Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
Samuel Johnson
Creative Commons
Born:
September 18, 1709
Died:
December 13, 1784
(aged 75)
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