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Samuel Johnson Quotes(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg/220px-Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg)
A British author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was a British author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
Here are some famous quotes by Samuel Johnson.
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I like a good hater.
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Despair is criminal.
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Clear your mind of 'can't'.
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Round numbers are always false.
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To be of no Church is dangerous.
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Exercise is labor without weariness.
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Languages are the pedigree of nations.
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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In a man's letters his soul lies naked.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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Example is more efficacious than precept.
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No man ever yet became great by imitation.
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
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In all pleasure hope is a considerable part.
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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
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A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.
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He that has much to do will do something wrong.
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The true art of memory is the art of attention.
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
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Men only become friends by community of pleasures.
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Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not.
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
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Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.
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Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.
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Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
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No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.
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A man Sir should keep his friendship in constant repair.
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Had I learned to fiddle I should have done nothing else.
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The first years of man must make provision for the last.
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He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.
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None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
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I have found men more kind than I expected and less just.
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Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
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A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
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Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
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Prudence keeps life safe but does not often make it happy.
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A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge.
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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
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When two Englishmen meet their first talk is of the weather.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
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The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
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Abstinence is as easy for me as temperance would be difficult.
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Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
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Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.
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While grief is fresh every attempt to divert it only irritates.
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Moderation is commonly firm and firmness is commonly successful.
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When speculation has done its worst two and two still make four.
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
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The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
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Shame arises from the fear of man; conscience from the fear of God.
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.
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To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.
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Being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned.
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Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.
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Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
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A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
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Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
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He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
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It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity.
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A fishing-rod was a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
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Pride is seldom delicate: it will please itself with very mean advantages.
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Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.
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The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
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He left the name at which the world grew pale To point a moral or adorn a tale.
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I live in the crowds of jollity not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
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The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book I assure you.
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Adversity leads us to think properly of our state and so is most beneficial to us.
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Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
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One of the disadvantages of wine is that is makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
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Friendship is a union of spirits a marriage of hearts and the bond there of virtue.
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The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef.
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The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
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It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood.
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It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
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For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
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Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.
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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
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O how vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
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An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive .
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A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man because he has both enjoyments.
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The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
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Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
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The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
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Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
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That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.
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The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.
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The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
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Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords.
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Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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It is foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the chastity of a wife.
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He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
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Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
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No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
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Oats n.s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people.
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No man is much pleased with a companion who does not increase in some respect his fondness of himself.
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Marriages would in general be as happy and often more so if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor.
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Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
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The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction.
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Knowledge is of two kinds; we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.
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No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
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Man is not weak - knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
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If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life he will soon find himself left alone.
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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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It is the just doom of laziness and a gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquillity.
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Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.
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A fly Sir may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect and the other a horse still.
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
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Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
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Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity and catch the good that is within our reach is the great art of life.
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Silence propagates itself and the longer talk has been suspended the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
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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.
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That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition no vanity but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.
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If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
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The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.
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Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.
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Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none at all and even the best cannot be expected to run quite true.
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When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
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The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love like being enlivened with champagne.
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(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being especially free from admirers then.
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The return of my birthday if I remember it fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
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I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth and that things are the sons of heaven.
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It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
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Friendship peculiar boon of Heaven The noble mind's delight and pride To men and angels only given To all the lower world denied.
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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty sickness and captivity would without this comfort be insupportable.
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Sir a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.
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Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven't courage you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
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Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.
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Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being free from flatterers.
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None are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it the next wish is to change again.
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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.
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Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
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Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
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Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
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Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?
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I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
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Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
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We are convinced that happiness is never to be found and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
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As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
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There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
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Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
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The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
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Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing. When we have made it the next wish is to change again.
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Men know that women are an overmatch for them and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
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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.
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Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.
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John Wesley's conversation is good but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do.
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There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
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That friendship may be at once fond and lasting there must not only be equal virtue on each part but virtue of the same kind; not only the same end must be proposed but the same means must be approved by both.
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As the Spanish proverb says 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is with traveling. A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
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The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.
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If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first and pity him afterwards.
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Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do and bark.
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Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords: but like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.
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Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
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An Italian philosopher said that 'time was his estate'; an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry and generally satisfy the most extensive desires if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence to be overrun with noxious plants or laid out for show rather than for use.