"Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt; that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls."
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Quote collection
Samuel Johnson quotes (page 50 of 88)
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"One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity."
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"An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature."
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"He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power."
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"Money confounds subordination."
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"I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed."
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"I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded."
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"The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall."
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"You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle."
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"To a people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never hurtful."
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"He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor."
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"Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities."
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"It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies."
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"Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction."
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"The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together."
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"Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop."
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"Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad."
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"Security will produce danger."
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"I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society."
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"A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation - a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something."
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