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He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

— Samuel Johnson The Idler (1758)

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More quotes by Samuel Johnson

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

The Idler (1758)

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

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Change based on principle is progress. Constant change without principle becomes chaos.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

To say that the future will be different from the present is, to scientists, hopelessly self-evident.

Robert F. Kennedy

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. (Weil die Dinge sind, wie sie sind, werden die Dinge nicht so bleiben wie sie sind.)

Bertolt Brecht Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1976)

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Johnson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.