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A Minute Analysis Of Life At Once Destroys That Splendor Which Dazzles The Imagination. Whatsoever Grandeur Can Display, Or Luxury Enjoy, Is Procured By Offices Of Which The Mind Shrinks From The Contemplation. All The Delicacies Of The Table May Be Traced Back To The Shambles And The Dunghill; All Magnificence Of Building Was Hewn From The Quarry, And All The Pomp Of Ornament Dug From Among The Damps And Darkness Of The Mine.

-Samuel Johnson

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A Minute Analysis Of

Samuel Johnson

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A Minute Analysis Of Life At Once Destroys That Splendor Which Dazzles The Imagination. Whatsoever Grandeur Can Display, Or Luxury Enjoy, Is Procured By Offices Of Which The Mind Shrinks From The Contemplation. All The Delicacies Of The Table May Be Traced Back To The Shambles And The Dunghill; All Magnificence Of Building Was Hewn From The Quarry, And All The Pomp Of Ornament Dug From Among The Damps And Darkness Of The Mine.

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He That Resigns His Peace To Little Casualties, And Suffers The Course Of His Life To Be Interrupted For Fortuitous Inadvertencies Or Offences, Delivers Up Himself To The Direction Of The Wind, And Loses All That Constancy And Equanimity Which Constitutes The Chief Praise Of A Wise Man.

Few Things Are Impossible To Diligence And Skill.

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?

A Country Is In A Bad State, Which Is Governed Only By Laws; Because A Thousand Things Occur For Which Laws Cannot Provide, And Where Authority Ought To Interpose.

A Man Has No More Right To Say An Uncivil Thing Than To Act One; No More Right To Say A Rude Thing To Another Than To Knock Him Down.

To Hear Complaints With Patience, Even When Complaints Are Vain, Is One Of The Duties Of Friendship.

I Have Always Considered A Clergyman As The Father Of A Larger Family Than He Is Able To Maintain.

Every Man Is Rich Or Poor According To The Proportion Between His Desires And His Enjoyments.

The Applause Of A Single Human Being Is Of Great Consequence.

There Can Be No Friendship Without Confidence, And No Confidence Without Integrity.

Riches Exclude Only One Inconvenience,--that Is, Poverty.

Marriage Is The Strictest Tie Of Perpetual Friendship, And There Can Be No Friendship Without Confidence, And No Confidence Without Integrity; And He Must Expect To Be Wretched, Who Pays To Beauty, Riches, Or Politeness That Regard Which Only Virtue And Piety Can Claim.

We Go From Anticipation To Anticipation, Not From Satisfaction To Satisfaction.

Unintelligible Language Is A Lantern Without A Light.

The Great Effect Of Friendship Is Beneficence, Yet By The First Act Of Uncommon Kindness It Is Endangered.

Lost Friendship

Sir, I Have Found You An Argument; But I Am Not Obliged To Find You An Understanding.

In Lapidary Inscriptions A Man Is Not Upon Oath.

Sir, There Is No Settling The Point Of Precedency Between A Louse And A Flea.

He Who Has So Little Knowledge Of Human Nature As To Seek Happiness By Changing Anything But His Own Disposition Will Waste His Life In Fruitless Efforts.

I Would Consent To Have A Limb Amputated To Recover My Spirits

Social Sorrow Loses Half Its Pain.

Human Experience, Which Is Constantly Contradicting Theory, Is The Great Test Of Truth. A System, Built Upon The Discoveries Of A Great Many Minds, Is Always Of More Strength, Than What Is Produced By The Mere Workings Of Any One Mind, Which, Of Itself, Can Do Very Little. There Is Not So Poor A Book In The World That Would Not Be A Prodigious Effort Were It Wrought Out Entirely By A Single Mind, Without The Aid Of Prior Investigators.

No Man Can Perform So Little As Not To Have Reason To Congratulate Himself On His Merits, When He Beholds The Multitude That Live In Total Idleness, And Have Never Yet Endeavoured To Be Useful.

Economy Is The Parent Of Integrity, Of Liberty, And Of Ease, And The Beauteous Sister Of Temperance, Of Cheerfulness And Health.

It Is Better To Live Rich Than To Die Rich.

Political Liberty Is Only Good Insofar As It Produces Private Liberty.

He That Will Enjoy The Brightness Of Sunshine, Must Quit The Coolness Of The Shade.

It Is Man's Own Fault, It Is From Want Of Use, If His Mind Grows Torpid In Old Age.

Every Man Prefers Virtue, When There Is Not Some Strong Incitement To Transgress Its Precepts.

The World Will Never Be Long Without Some Good Reason To Hate The Unhappy; Their Real Faults Are Immediately Detected; And If Those Are Not Sufficient To Sink Them Into Infamy, An Individual Weight Of Calumny Will Be Super-added.

No Man Is Without Some Quality, By The Due Application Of Which He Might Deserve Well Of The World; And Whoever He Be That Has But Little In His Power Should Be In Haste To Do That Little, Lest He Be Confounded With Him That Can Do Nothing.

The Mathematicians Are Well Acquainted With The Difference Between Pure Science, Which Has Only To Do With Ideas, And The Application Of Its Laws To The Use Of Life, In Which They Are Constrained To Submit To The Imperfections Of Matter And The Influence Of Accidents.

It Is Scarcely Credible To What Degree Discernment May Be Dazzled By The Mist Of Pride, And Wisdom Infatuated By The Intoxication Of Flattery.

Diffidence May Check Resolution And Obstruct Performance, But Compensates Its Embarrassments By More Important Advantages; It Conciliates The Proud, And Softens The Severe; Averts Envy From Excellence, And Censure From Miscarriage.

He That Is Much Flattered Soon Learns To Flatter Himself.

To Forget, Or Pretend To Do So, To Return A Borrowed Article, Is The Meanest Sort Of Petty Theft.

The Appearance And Retirement Of Actors Are The Great Events Of The Theatrical World; And Their First Performances Fill The Pit With Conjecture And Prognostication, As The First Actions Of A New Monarch Agitate Nations With Hope And Fear.

The Friendship Which Is To Be Practised Or Expected By Common Mortals, Must Take Its Rise From Mutual Pleasure, And Must End When The Power Ceases Of Delighting Each Other.

When Any Anxiety Or Gloom Of The Mind Takes Hold Of You, Make It A Rule Not To Publish It By Complaining; But Exert Yourselves To Hide It, And By Endeavoring To Hide It You Drive It Away.

The Rules That I Shall Propose Concerning Secrecy, And From Which I Think It Not Safe To Deviate Without Long And Exact Deliberation, Are, Never To Solicit The Knowledge Of A Secret,--not Willingly, Nor Without Many Limitations, To Accept Such Confidence When It Is Offered; When A Secret Is Once Admitted, To Consider The Trust As Of A Very High Nature, Important As Society And Sacred As Truth, And Therefore Not To Be Violated For Any Incidental Convenience, Or Slight Appearance Of Contrary Fitness.

No Writer Can Be Fully Convicted Of Imitation Except There Is A Concurrence Of More Resemblance Than Can Be Imagined To Have Happened By Chance; As Where The Same Ideas Are Conjoined Without Any Natural Series Or Necessary Coherence, Or Where Not Only The Thought But The Words Are Copied.

It Is Not Often That Any Man Can Have So Much Knowledge Of Another, As Is Necessary To Make Instruction Useful.

Read The Book You Do Honestly Feel A Wish And Curiosity To Read.

Men Have Solicitude About Fame; And The Greater Share They Have Of It, The More Afraid They Are Of Losing It.

Want Of Tenderness Is Want Of Parts, And Is No Less A Proof Of Stupidity Than Depravity.

A Man May Write At Any Time, If He Will Set Himself Doggedly To It.

He Was So Generally Civil, That Nobody Thanked Him For It.

When Once The Forms Of Civility Are Violated, There Remains Little Hope Of Return To Kindness Or Decency.

Let Observation With Extensive View, Survey Mankind From China To Peru; Remark Each Anxious Toil, Each Eager Strife, And Watch The Busy Scenes Of Crowded Life.

I Should As Soon Think Of Contradicting A Bishop

Shakespeare Never Had Six Lines Together Without A Fault. Perhaps You May Find Seven, But This Does Not Refute My General Assertion.

Grief Is A Species Of Idleness.

Yet Reason Frowns In War's Unequal Game, Where Wasted Nations Raise A Single Name; And Mortgag'd States Their Grandsire's Wreaths Regret, From Age To Age In Everlasting Debt; Wreaths Which At Last The Dear-bought Right Convey To Rust On Medals, Or On Stones Decay.

All Knowledge Is Of Itself Of Some Value. There Is Nothing So Minute Or Inconsiderable, That I Would Not Rather Know It Than Not. In The Same Manner, All Power, Of Whatever Sort, Is Of Itself Desirable. A Man Would Not Submit To Learn To Hem A Ruffle, Of His Wife, Or His Wife's Maid; But If A Mere Wish Could Attain It, He Would Rather Wish To Be Able To Hem A Ruffle.

When A Language Begins To Teem With Books, It Is Tending To Refinement; As Those Who Undertake To Teach Others Must Have Undergone Some Labour In Improving Themselves, They Set A Proportionate Value On Their Own Thoughts, And Wish To Enforce Them By Efficacious Expressions; Speech Becomes Embodied And Permanent; Different Modes And Phrases Are Compared, And The Best Obtains An Establishment. By Degrees One Age Improves Upon Another.

When I Find That So Much Of My Life Has Stolen Unprofitably Away, And That I Can Descry By Retrospection Scarcely A Few Single Days Properly And Vigorously Employed, Why Do I Yet Try To Resolve Again? I Try, Because Reformation Is Necessary And Despair Is Criminal. I Try, In Humble Hope Of The Help Of God.

When Desperate Ills Demand A Speedy Cure, Distrust Is Cowardice, And Prudence Folly.

Pity Is Not Natural To Man. Children Always Are Cruel. Savages Are Always Cruel.

It May Be Laid Down As A Position Which Seldom Deceives, That When A Man Cannot Bear His Own Company, There Is Something Wrong.

Actions Are Visible, Though Motives Are Secret.

It Is Better To Suffer Wrong Than To Do It, And Happier To Be Sometimes Cheated Than Not To Trust.

Genius Is That Energy Which Collects, Combines, Amplifies, And Animates.

I Am Not So Lost In Lexicography As To Forget That Words Are The Daughters Of Earth, And That Things Are The Sons Of Heaven.

Remember That Nothing Will Supply The Want Of Prudence, And That Negligence And Irregularity Long Continued Will Make Knowledge Useless, Wit Ridiculous, And Genius Contemptible.

Ignorance, When It Is Voluntary, Is Criminal; And He May Be Properly Charged With Evil Who Refused To Learn How He Might Prevent It.

Sorrow Is Properly That State Of The Mind In Which Our Desires Are Fixed Upon The Past Without Looking Forward To The Future.

Liberty Is, To The Lowest Rank Of Every Nation, Little More Than The Choice Of Working Or Starving.

Sir, I Think All Christians, Whether Papists Or Protestants, Agree In The Essential Articles, And That Their Differences Are Trivial, And Rather Political Than Religious.

Our Minds Should Not Be Empty Because If They Are Not Preoccupied By Good, Evil Will Break In Upon Them.

Round Numbers Are Always False.

Fears Of The Brave And Follies Of The Wise.

Try And Forget Our Cares And Sickness, And Contribute, As We Can To The Happiness Of Each Other.

If Pleasure Was Not Followed By Pain, Who Would Forbear It?

Politics Are Now Nothing More Than Means Of Rising In The World.

We Are Easily Shocked By Crimes Which Appear At Once In Their Full Magnitude, But The Gradual Growth Of Our Own Wickedness, Endeared By Interest, And Palliated By All The Artifices Of Self-deceit, Gives Us Time To Form Distinctions In Our Own Favor

To Preserve Health Is A Moral And Religious Duty: For Health Is The Basis Of All Social Virtues; And We Can Be Useful No Longer Than While We Are Well.

A Writer Only Begins A Book. A Reader Finishes It.

Affectation Is To Be Always Distinguished From Hypocrisy As Being The Art Of Counterfeiting Those Qualities, Which We Might With Innocence And Safety, Be Known To Want. Hypocrisy Is The Necessary Burden Of Villainy; Affectation Part Of The Chosen Trappings Of Folly.

A Cow Is A Very Good Animal In The Field; But We Turn Her Out Of A Garden.

Riches Are Of No Value In Themselves; Their Use Is Discovered Only In That Which They Procure.

Life, However Short, Is Made Still Shorter By Waste Of Time.

1. Turn All Care Out Of Your Head As Soon As You Mount The Chaise. 2. Do Not Think About Frugality: Your Health Is Worth More Than It Can Cost. 3. Do Not Continue Any Day's Journey To Fatigue. 4. Take Now And Then A Day's Rest. 5. Get A Smart Seasickness If You Can. 6. Cast Away All Anxiety, And Keep Your Mind Easy. This Last Direction Is The Principal; With An Unquiet Mind Neither Exercise, Nor Diet, Nor Physic Can Be Of Much Use.

Books Are Faithful Repositories, Which May Be Awhile Neglected Or Forgotten; But When They Are Opened Again, Will Again Impart Their Instruction: Memory, Once Interrupted, Is Not To Be Recalled. Written Learning Is A Fixed Luminary, Which, After The Cloud That Had Hidden It Has Passed Away, Is Again Bright In Its Proper Station. Tradition Is But A Meteor, Which, If Once It Falls, Cannot Be Rekindled.

It Is Very Strange, And Very Melancholy, That The Paucity Of Human Pleasures Should Persuade Us Ever To Call Hunting One Of Them.

A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing - It Only Hastens Fools To Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread.

All Industry Must Be Excited By Hope.

Every One Should Consider Himself As Intrusted Not Only With His Own Conduct, But With That Of Others; And As Accountable, Not Only For The Duties Which He Neglects, Or The Crimes That He Commits, But For That Negligence And Irregularity Which He May Encourage Or Inculcate. Every Man, In Whatever Station, Has, Or Endeavours To Have His Followers, Admirers, And Imitators, And Has Therefore The Influence Of His Example To Watch With Care.

There Is, Indeed, Nothing That So Much Seduces Reason From Vigilance, As The Thought Of Passing Life With An Amiable Woman.

Hypocrisy Is The Necessary Burden Of Villainy, Affectation Part Of The Chosen Trappings Of Folly; The One Completes A Villain, The Other Only Finishes A Fop.

Nature Has Given Women So Much Power That The Law Has Very Wisely Given Them Little.

The Natural Progress Of The Works Of Men Is From Rudeness To Convenience, From Convenience To Elegance, And From Elegance To Nicety.

You Teach Your Daughters The Diameters Of The Planets And Wonder When You Are Done That They Do Not Delight In Your Company.

I Advised Chambers, And Would Advise Every Young Man Beginning To Compose, To Do It As Fast As He Can, To Get A Habit Of Having His Mind To Start Promptly; It Is So Much More Difficult To Improve In Speed Than In Accuracy.

Every Desire Is A Viper In The Bosom, Who While He Was Chill Was Harmless; But When Warmth Gave Him Strength, Exerted It In Poison.

You Despise A Man For Avarice; But You Do Not Hate Him.

It Is Not Difficult To Conceive, However, That For Many Reasons A Man Writes Much Better Than He Lives. For Without Entering Into Refined Speculations, It May Be Shown Much Easier To Design Than To Perform. A Man Proposes His Schemes Of Life In A State Of Abstraction And Disengagement, Exempt From The Enticements Of Hope, The Solicitations Of Affection, The Importunities Of Appetite, Or The Depressions Of Fear.

Nothing Is Little To Him That Feels It With Great Sensibility.

Quotation Is The Highest Compliment You Can Pay An Author.

Compliments You

Wine Gives Great Pleasure, And Every Pleasure Is Of Itself A Good. And A Man Should Cultivate His Mind So As To Have That Confidence And Readiness Without Wine, Which Wine Gives.

A Successful Author Is Equally In Danger Of The Diminution Of His Fame, Whether He Continues Or Ceases To Write.

The Habit Of Looking On The Bright Side Of Every Event Is Worth More Than A Thousand Pounds A Year.

Positive Thinking

He That Never Thinks Can Never Be Wise.

A Man Guilty Of Poverty Easily Believes Himself Suspected.

The Great End Of Prudence Is To Give Cheerfulness To Those Hours Which Splendour Cannot Gild, And Acclamation Cannot Exhilarate; Those Soft Intervals Of Unbended Amusement, In Which A Man Shrinks To His Natural Dimensions, And Throws Aside The Ornaments Or Disguises Which He Feels In Privacy To Be Useless Incumbrances, And To Lose All Effect When They Become Familiar. To Be Happy At Home Is The Ultimate Result Of All Ambition, The End To Which Every Enterprise And Labour Tends, And Of Which Every Desire Prompts The Prosecution.

Great Works Are Performed, Not By Strength, But By Perseverance. Those That Walk With Vigor, Three Hours A Day, Will Pass In Seven Years A Space Equal To The Circumference Of The Globe.

You Cannot Spend Money In Luxury Without Doing Good To The Poor. Nay, You Do More Good To Them By Spending It In Luxury, Than By Giving It; For By Spending It In Luxury, You Make Them Exert Industry, Whereas By Giving It, You Keep Them Idle.

"i Fly From Pleasure," Said The Prince, "because Pleasure Has Ceased To Please; I Am Lonely Because I Am Miserable, And Am Unwilling To Cloud With My Presence The Happiness Of Others."

No Man Can Taste The Fruits Of Autumn While He Is Delighting His Scent With The Flowers Of Spring.

A Few Men Are Sufficient To Broach Falsehoods, Which Are Afterwards Innocently Diffused By Successive Relaters.

It Is More From Carelessness About Truth Than From Intentionally Lying That There Is So Much Falsehood In The World.

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.

From Ignorance Our Comfort Flows, The Only Wretched Are The Wise

There Are Occasions On Which All Apology Is Rudeness.

Pride Is Seldom Delicate; It Will Please Itself With Very Mean Advantages.

Suspicion Is Very Often A Useless Pain.

It Has Long Been Observed, That An Atheist Has No Just Reason For Endeavouring Conversions; And Yet None Harass Those Minds Which They Can Influence, With More Importunity Of Solicitation To Adopt Their Opinions. In Proportion As They Doubt The Truth Of Their Own Doctrines, They Are Desirous To Gain The Attestation Of Another Understanding: And Industriously Labour To Win A Proselyte, And Eagerly Catch At The Slightest Pretense To Dignify Their Sect With A Distinguished Name.

Many Things Difficult To Design Prove Easy To Performance.

In Youth, It Is Common To Measure Right And Wrong By The Opinion Of The World, And In Age, To Act Without Any Measure But Interest, And To Lose Shame Without Substituting Virtue.

Wickedness Is Always Easier Than Virtue; For It Takes The Short Cut To Everything.

Self-love Is A Busy Prompter.

Pain Is Less Subject Than Pleasure To Careless Expression.

Distance Either Of Time Or Place Is Sufficient To Reconcile Weak Minds To Wonderful Relations.

Curiosity Is The Thirst Of The Soul.

I Have Adopted The Roman Sentiment, That It Is More Honorable To Save A Citizen Than To Kill An Enemy.

Misfortunes Should Always Be Expected.

My Diseases Are An Asthma And A Dropsy And, What Is Less Curable, Seventy-five.

At Seventy-seven It Is Time To Be In Earnest.

A Man Is In General Better Pleased When He Has A Good Dinner Upon His Table, Than When His Wife Talks Greek.

To Strive With Difficulties, And To Conquer Them, Is The Highest Human Felicity.

Cowardice Encroaches Fast Upon Such As Spend Their Lives In Company Of Persons Higher Than Themselves.

To Purchase Heaven Has Gold The Power? Can Gold Remove The Mortal Hour? In Life Can Love Be Bought With Gold? Are Friendship's Pleasures To Be Sold? No--all That's Worth A Wish--a Thought, Fair Virtue Gives Unbribed, Unbought. Cease Then On Trash Thy Hopes To Bind, Let Nobler Views Engage Thy Mind.

A Lexicographer, A Writer Of Dictionaries, A Harmless Drudge.

A Certain Amount Of Distrust Is Wholesome, But Not So Much Of Others As Of Ourselves; Neither Vanity Not Conceit Can Exist In The Same Atmosphere With It.

No Evil Is Insupportable But That Which Is Accompanied With Consciousness Of Wrong.

I Know Not, Madam, That You Have A Right, Upon Moral Principles, To Make Your Readers Suffer So Much.

That Kind Of Life Is Most Happy Which Affords Us Most Opportunities Of Gaining Our Own Esteem.

Disease Generally Begins That Equality Which Death Completes.

The Happiness Of Building Lasted But A Little While, For Though I Love To Spend, I Hate To Be Cheated; And I Soon Found, That To Build Is To Be Robbed.

Friends Are Often Chosen For Similitude Of Manners, And Therefore Each Palliates The Other's Failings Because They Are His Own.

Tears Are Often To Be Found Where There Is Little Sorrow, And The Deepest Sorrow Without Any Tears.

From Thee, Great God, We Spring, To Thee We Tend,- Path, Motive, Guide, Original, And End.

Wasting A Fortune Is Evaporation By A Thousand Imperceptible Means.

Learn The Leading Precognita Of All Things-no Need To Turn Over Leaf By Leaf, But Grasp The Trunk Hard And You Will Shake All The Branches. Advice Cherished By Samuel Johnson That That, If One Is To Master Any Subject, One Must First Discover Its General Principles.

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.

Most Men Think Indistinctly, And Therefore Cannot Speak With Exactness . . .

Some People Have A Foolish Way Of Not Minding, Or Pretending Not To Mind, What They Eat. For My Part, I Mind My Belly Very Studiously, And Very Carefully; For I Look Upon It, That He Who Does Not Mind His Belly Will Hardly Mind Anything Else.

Who Drives Fat Oxen Should Himself Be Fat.

The Most Fatal Disease Of Friendship Is Gradual Decay, Or Dislike Hourly Increased By Causes Too Slender For Complaint, And Too Numerous For Removal.

In Sovereignty There Are No Gradations.

There Are Minds So Impatient Of Inferiority That Their Gratitude Is A Species Of Revenge, And They Return Benefits, Not Because Recompense Is A Pleasure, But Because Obligation Is A Pain.

Life Protracted Is Protracted Woe.

Exercise Is Labor Without Weariness.

The Worst Evils Are Those That Never Arrive.

Surely A Long Life Must Be Somewhat Tedious, Since We Are Forced To Call In So Many Trifling Things To Help Rid Us Of Our Time, Which Will Never Return.

Frequent Discontent Must Proceed From Frequent Hardships.

It Is Our First Duty To Serve Society, And After We Have Done That, We May Attend Wholly To The Salvation Of Our Own Souls.

A Man Who Always Talks For Fame Never Can Be Pleasing. The Man Who Talks To Unburthen His Mind Is The Man To Delight You.

Wine Gives A Man Nothing. It Neither Gives Him Knowledge Nor Wit; It Only Animates A Man, And Enables Him To Bring Out What A Dread Of The Company Has Repressed. It Only Puts In Motion What Had Been Locked Up In Frost.

The Accidental Prescriptions Of Authority, When Time Has Procured Them Veneration, Are Often Confounded With The Laws Of Nature, And Those Rules Are Supposed Coeval With Reason, Of Which The First Rise Cannot Be Discovered.

All To Whom Want Is Terrible, Upon Whatever Principle, Ought To Think Themselves Obliged To Learn The Sage Maxims Of Our Parsimonious Ancestors, And Attain The Salutary Arts Of Contracting Expense; For Without Economy None Can Be Rich, And With It Few Can Be Poor.

I Would Be Loath To Speak Ill Of Any Person Who I Do Not Know Deserves It, But I Am Afraid He Is An Attorney.

Being Married To Those Sleepy-souled Women Is Just Like Playing At Cards For Nothing: No Passion Is Excited And The Time Is Filled Up. I Do Not, However, Envy A Fellow One Of Those Honeysuckle Wives For My Part, As They Are But Creepers At Best And Commonly Destroy The Tree They So Tenderly Cling About.

The Present Is Never A Happy State To Any Human Being.

A Blade Of Grass Is Always A Blade Of Grass, Whether In One Country Or Another.

Even Those To Whom Providence Has Allotted Greater Strength Of Understanding Can Expect Only To Improve A Single Science.

Fly-fishing May Be A Very Pleasant Amusement; But Angling Or Float Fishing I Can Only Compare To A Stick And A String, With A Worm At One End And A Fool At The Other.

Men, However Distinguished By External Accidents Or Intrinsick Qualities, Have All The Same Wants, The Same Pains, And, As Far As The Senses Are Consulted, The Same Pleasures.

Dogs Have Not The Power Of Comparing. A Dog Will Take A Small Piece Of Meat As Readily As A Large, When Both Are Before Him.

I Am Always For Getting A Boy Forward In His Learning, For That Is Sure Good. I Would Let Him At First Read Any English Book Which Happens To Engage His Attention; Because You Have Done A Great Deal When You Have Brought Him To Have Entertainment From A Book. He'll Get Better Books Afterwards.

I Will Take No More Physick, Not Even My Opiates; For I Have Prayed That I May Render Up My Soul To God Unclouded.

All The Arguments Which Are Brought To Represent Poverty As No Evil Show It Evidently To Be A Great Evil.

In The Condition Of Men, It Frequently Happens That Grief And Anxiety Lie Hid Under The Golden Robes Of Prosperity; And The Gloom Of Calamity Is Cheered By Secret Radiations Of Hope And Comfort; As In The Works Of Nature, The Bog Is Sometimes Covered With Flowers, And The Mine Concealed In The Barren Crags.

In Proportion As Our Cares Are Employed Upon The Future, They Are Abstracted From The Present, From The Only Time Which We Can Call Our Own, And Of Which, If We Neglect The Apparent Duties To Make Provision Against Visionary Attacks, We Shall Certainly Counteract Our Own Purpose.

Fraud And Falsehood Only Dread Examination. Truth Invites It.

The Superiority Of Some Men Is Merely Local. They Are Great Because Their Associates Are Little.

Men Who Cannot Deceive Others Are Very Often Successful At Deceiving Themselves.

And Panting Time Toil'd After Him In Vain.

One Of The Disadvantages Of Wine Is That It Makes A Man Mistake Words For Thoughts.

When A Man Is Tired Of London, He Is Tired Of Life; For There Is In London All That Life Can Afford.

The Noblest Prospect Which A Scotchman Ever Sees Is The High Road That Leads Him To England.

That Fellow Seems To Me To Possess But One Idea, And That Is A Wrong One.

The Business Of Life Is To Go Forward.

The Joy Of Life Is Variety; The Tenderest Love Requires To Be Rekindled By Intervals Of Absence.

To Be Prejudiced Is Always To Be Weak

That What Cannot Be Repaired Is Not To Be Regretted.

It Was Said Of Euripides, That Every Verse Was A Precept; And It May Be Said Of Shakespeare, That From His Works May Be Collected A System Of Civil And Economical Prudence.

If The Guardian Or The Mother Tell The Woes Of Willful Waste, Scorn Their Counsel And Their Pother, You Can Hang Or Drown At Last.

This Mournful Truth Is Everywhere Confessed, Slow Rises Worth By Poverty Depressed.

Like An Image In A Dream The World Is Troubled By Love, Hatred, And Other Poisons. So Long As The Dream Lasts, The Image Appears To Be Real; But On Awaking It Vanishes.

Patience And Submission Are Very Carefully To Be Distinguished From Cowardice And Indolence. We Are Not To Repine, But We May Lawfully Struggle; For The Calamities Of Life, Like The Necessities Of Nature, Are Calls To Labor And Diligence.

Human Happiness Has Always Its Abatements; The Brightest Sunshine Of Success Is Not Without A Cloud.

A Ship Is Worse Than A Gaol. There Is, In A Gaol, Better Air, Better Company, Better Conveniency Of Every Kind; And A Ship Has The Additional Disadvantage Of Of Being In Danger.

No Man Should Attempt To Teach Others What He Has Never Learned Himself

All Power Of Fancy Over Reason Is A Degree Of Madness.

Read Over Your Compositions And Whenever You Meet With A Passage Which You Think Is Particularly Fine, Strike It Out.

Security Will Produce Danger.

The Next Best Thing To Knowing Something Is Knowing Where To Find It.

Men Go To Sea, Before They Know The Unhappiness Of That Way Of Life; And When They Have Come To Know It, They Cannot Escape From It, Because It Is Then Too Late To Choose Another Profession; As Indeed Is Generally The Case With Men, When They Have Once Engaged In Any Particular Way Of Life.

Of All The Griefs That Harass The Distress'd, Sure The Most Bitter Is A Scornful Jest; Fate Never Wounds More Deep The Generous Heart, Than When A Blockhead's Insult Points The Dart.

Hope Is Necessary In Every Condition. The Miseries Of Poverty, Sickness And Captivity Would, Without This Comfort, Be Insupportable.

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