Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.


Samuel Johnson

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Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strik...
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People read stuff over your shoulder when you're in public, and when you write the kind of stuff...
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It is what it is, it is what you make it.
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If you fall in love with somebody you're working with, fine, but wait till your project is over.
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For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear-When you are the h...
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For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the anvil, bear-When you are the h...
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You can strike out at people ,Strike off your business but you can not STRIKE down someones dreams b...
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For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear -- when you ar...
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For all your days be prepared, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear - when you are...
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I once sent him a song and asked him to mark a cross wherever he thought it was faulty. Brahms retur...
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There is very strong evidence, particularly when you get to over 50, that the degree to which you ma...
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It is a lie.
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To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not...
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Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.
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I think what I love most about writing is that feeling that you really nailed something. I rarely fe...
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The best part of the gospel is you get to take it with you wherever your heart lands.
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When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, pe...
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I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience...
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For all your years prepare,
And meet them ever alike;
When you are the anvil, bear--
...
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But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up an...
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With a new baby, you have a bad day now and again because you're particularly tired, but most of...
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Of course, it is boring to read about boring thing, but it is better to read something that makes yo...
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Read over your existing business plan like you read the menu at your favorite restaurant.
DARREN L JOHNSON
Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it merely...
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Wherever it is you may be, it is your friends who make your world.
CHRIS BRADFORD
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watc...
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That chain of relationships made me think of how connections are made--you read a book, you meet a p...
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We made a mistake, and you have to be responsible for your mistakes. If they feel the title shouldn'...
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I think people respond to dystopian stories because they're ways of acting out anxieties that we...
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Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.
RALPH B. PERRY
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
CONFUCIUS
You cannot strike out in your first major-league at-bat.
MARLON ANDERSON
The best way to lead your life is to do your best wherever you are with whatever you have.
SUPERNA BATHEJA
So what do you think I should do when I get bored?” I asked. “Think something intellectually and...
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When you open the door which you shut in order to pray to God, the first person you meet as you go o...
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[Johnson has] been a visionary, ... Wherever he goes, success follows.
ALAN ABRAMOWITZ
When you go out of your country and meet people, you get a wider perspective.
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Hang out with the powerful and people will kneel before you wherever you go.
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Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
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Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't
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Before you "sign", read the "fine"
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Read it with sorrow and you will feel hate.
Read it with anger and you will feel vengeful.
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I think you kick a guy in the butt in a tough situation, it's only gonna make it worse. You shouldn'...
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It makes a difference when you don't strike out.
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Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when...
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Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your...
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...and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and thin...
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I think it's a natural human tendency, when you read something, you tend to read a lot of your p...
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Community service is wherever there is a need, and whatever you think that you can do.
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The passage is free for those who think you are not good enough for them: at your level, I think the...
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Never be afraid to treat the path alone. Know which is your path and follow it wherever it may lead ...
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I think everybody will adjust just fine. We've adjusted just fine wherever we've gone so far.
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And He is with you wherever you may be.
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It is disconcerting to sit with your parent and find you're turning over your future to your gov...
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You tend to meet on a more regular basis with people in your industry, and reality being what it is,...
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If you want to go to a far and difficult place, firstly send your mind to that far place, then your ...
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Throughout your life you will meet thousands of people, but every once in a while, you feel instant ...
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People think money is life and your life is over if you lose it.
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To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
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Wherever you grow up, you think of it as normal.
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You think women's liberation and feminism entitles you to be sexual? Sure! Fine! But you still have ...
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There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a li...
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Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
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When you print out your manuscript and read it, marking up with a pen, it sometimes feels like a cri...
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If you say that your national law allows you to do something, it is fine as long as you do this insi...
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It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.
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The novel can be read simply as a story which you can skip if you want. It can be read as a story yo...
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The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it.
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I have American friends in France, and when I meet with them, they tell me about everything that is ...
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Think about your menu, and if you're not a skilled chef - which I'm not - follow a recipe. Y...
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Gaining control over your health and well-being is one of those times in your life that you get to b...
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The problem with heroes and villains is that it’s not always easy to tell which is which. Particul...
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If I have my opinion about something, you have your opinion about something, we don't have to fi...
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Think more than you read and become an author. Think as much as you read and become a speaker. Read ...
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My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
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The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
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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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Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
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It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehe...
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Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the fals...
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He who praises every body, praises nobody.
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from...
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He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
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Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
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Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
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When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny...
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Whatever you have spend less.
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There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
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What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
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A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little g...
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Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: ...
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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
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Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage i...
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.
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By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so...
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It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
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A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talk...
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Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and...
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The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illust...
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We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond t...
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This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
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He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind ...
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Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in...
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The endearing elegance of female friendship.
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To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
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The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too sle...
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To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his ut...
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It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharg...
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
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The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the publi...
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"He was a very good hater."
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I like a good hater.
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We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it posse...
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Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike...
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Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the...
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I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much...
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In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over ha...
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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious...
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If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left...
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Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
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Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
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Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purc...
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My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good...
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Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
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Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
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The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispe...
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A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore o...
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Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with ...
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
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Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship i...
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There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that w...
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Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignora...
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The true art of memory is the art of attention.
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What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
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The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
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The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
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Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
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Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
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It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
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That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
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The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
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Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.
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It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure...
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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want...
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This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
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Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to ...
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Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; ...
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If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
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Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
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If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let u...
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagre...
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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many thing...
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but per...
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Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and att...
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dr...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the par...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the ...
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Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full mea...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of t...
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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, t...
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his serva...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external age...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hangi...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good unti...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effront...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. B...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make fa...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as m...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be aft...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves wit...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiabl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense o...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persu...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, an...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and la...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bul...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly beco...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Suspicion is most often useless pain.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit tho...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely e...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom natur...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors afte...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the f...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again exp...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: b...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
SAMUEL JOHNSON