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More about Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson -
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237 Sourced Quotes
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It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
Samuel Johnson
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The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform.
Samuel Johnson
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If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.
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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The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.
Samuel Johnson
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Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.
Samuel Johnson
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No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.
Samuel Johnson
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Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.
Samuel Johnson
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The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.
Samuel Johnson
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Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.
Samuel Johnson
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Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
Samuel Johnson
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No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
Samuel Johnson
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Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous.
Samuel Johnson
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It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God; whether God is just; whether this life is the only state of existence.
Samuel Johnson
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Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour.
Samuel Johnson
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What can a sick man say, but that he is sick?
Samuel Johnson
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The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.
Samuel Johnson
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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
Samuel Johnson
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You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.
Samuel Johnson
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Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
Samuel Johnson
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No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.
Samuel Johnson
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A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.
Samuel Johnson
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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
Samuel Johnson
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A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.
Samuel Johnson
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It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Samuel Johnson
Creative Commons
Born:
September 18, 1709
Died:
December 13, 1784
(aged 75)
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