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Charity
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
-Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson
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He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
-Samuel Johnson
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You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
-Samuel Johnson
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Christianity
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Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
-Samuel Johnson
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City Life, Cities
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Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
-Samuel Johnson
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Coffee (or Tea)
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Its proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
-Samuel Johnson
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Compromise
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Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
-Samuel Johnson
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Concentration
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Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
-Samuel Johnson
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
-Samuel Johnson
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Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
-Samuel Johnson
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Confidence
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
-Samuel Johnson
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
-Samuel Johnson
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It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
-Samuel Johnson
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Conversation
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The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.
-Samuel Johnson
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
-Samuel Johnson
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Cowardice/Weakness
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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.
-Samuel Johnson
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Creation
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There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
-Samuel Johnson
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Criticism
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Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
-Samuel Johnson
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Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
-Samuel Johnson
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.
-Samuel Johnson
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Cruelty
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A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
-Samuel Johnson
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Curiosity
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Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
-Samuel Johnson
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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
-Samuel Johnson
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Death
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It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
-Samuel Johnson
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I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
-Samuel Johnson
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Books by and about Samuel Johnson