"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

Action

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Thematic Reflection

This quotation examines the core nature of Action as articulated by Samuel Johnson. Within historical and literary traditions, reflections on Action provide actionable mental models, challenging individuals to evaluate personal ethics, self-discipline, and daily actions.

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About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer and polymath who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The work for which he is best known is his 42,733-entry Dictionary of the English Language (1755). For this and other contributions in and to the English language, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has called him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".

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More by Samuel Johnson

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

— Samuel Johnson
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"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."

— Samuel 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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"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others."

— Samuel Johnson
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More about Action

"I don't know much, but I like talking to people who know a lot more than I do."

— Bryan Callen
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"In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now."

— Robert Carlyle
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"I know that one day I would love to do a musical."

— Guillaume Canet
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"We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business."

— Marcy Kaptur
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