"When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am."
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Quote collection
Samuel Johnson quotes (page 27 of 88)
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"When a man marries a widow his jealousies revert to the past: no man is as good as his wife says her first husband was"
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"An exotic and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed."
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"I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."
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"When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it; you will dry it away. Be always busy."
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"Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion."
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"He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot."
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"Pity is not natural to man. Children always are cruel. Savages are always cruel."
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"Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness."
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"The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning."
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"The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated."
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"Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed."
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"No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves."
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"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives."
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"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."
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"There are in every age new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed."
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"Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end."
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"Employment and hardships prevent melancholy."
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"Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book."
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"The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence."
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