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He That Can Swim Needs Not Despair To Fly; To Swim Is To Fly In A Grosser Fluid, And To Fly Is To Swim In A Subtler. We Are Only To Proportion Our Power Of Resistance To The Different Density Of Matter Through Which We Are To Pass. You Will Be Necessarily Upborne By The Air If You Can Renew Any Impulse Upon It Faster Than The Air Can Recede From The Pressure.

-Samuel Johnson

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He That Can Swim

Samuel Johnson

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He That Can Swim Needs Not Despair To Fly; To Swim Is To Fly In A Grosser Fluid, And To Fly Is To Swim In A Subtler. We Are Only To Proportion Our Power Of Resistance To The Different Density Of Matter Through Which We Are To Pass. You Will Be Necessarily Upborne By The Air If You Can Renew Any Impulse Upon It Faster Than The Air Can Recede From The Pressure.

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There Is In This World No Real Delight (excepting Those Of Sensuality), But Exchange Of Ideas In Conversation.

To Tell Of Disappointment And Misery, To Thicken The Darkness Of Futurity, And Perplex The Labyrinth Of Uncertainty, Has Been Always A Delicious Employment Of The Poets

As All Error Is Meanness, It Is Incumbent On Every Man Who Consults His Own Dignity, To Retract It As Soon As He Discovers It.

Peevishness May Be Considered The Canker Of Life, That Destroys Its Vigor And Checks Its Improvement; That Creeps On With Hourly Depredations, And Taints And Vitiates What It Cannot Consume.

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

Sir, You Have But Two Topics, Yourself And Me. I Am Sick Of Both.

Hides From Himself His State, And Shuns To Know That Life Protracted Is Protracted Woe.

The Vicious Count Their Years; Virtuous, Their Acts.

Making A Difference

To Be Happy At Home Is The Ultimate Result Of All Ambition.

I Look Upon Every Day To Be Lost, In Which I Do Not Make A New Acquaintance.

You Hesitate To Stab Me With A Word, And Know Not - Silence Is The Sharper Sword.

There Is Nothing Against Which An Old Man Should Be So Much Upon His Guard As Putting Himself To Nurse.

Presumption Will Be Easily Corrected; But Timidity Is A Disease Of The Mind More Obstinate And Fatal.

To See Helpless Infancy Stretching Out Her Hands, And Pouring Out Her Cries In Testimony Of Dependence, Without Any Powers To Alarm Jealousy, Or Any Guilt To Alienate Affection, Must Surely Awaken Tenderness In Every Human Mind; And Tenderness Once Excited Will Be Hourly Increased By The Natural Contagion Of Felicity, By The Repercussion Of Communicated Pleasure, By The Consciousness Of Dignity Of Benefaction.

As Any Action Or Posture, Long Continued, Will Distort And Disfigure The Limbs, So The Mind Likewise Is Crippled And Contracted By Perpetual Application To The Same Set Of Ideas.

Between Falsehood And Useless Truth There Is Little Difference. As Gold Which He Cannot Spend Will Make No Man Rich, So Knowledge Which Cannot Apply Will Make No Man Wise.

London! The Needy Villain's General Home, The Common Sewer Of Paris And Of Rome! With Eager Thirst, By Folly Or By Fate, Sucks In The Dregs Of Each Corrupted State.

The Difference Between Coarse And Refined Abuse Is The Difference Between Being Bruised By A Club And Wounded By A Poisoned Arrow.

Man Is A Transitory Being, And His Designs Must Partake Of The Imperfections Of Their Author. To Confer Duration Is Not Always In Our Power. We Must Snatch The Present Moment, And Employ It Well, Without Too Much Solicitude For The Future, And Content Ourselves With Reflecting That Our Part Is Performed. He That Waits For An Opportunity To Do Much At Once, May Breathe Out His Life In Idle Wishes, And Regret, In The Last Hour, His Useless Intentions And Barren Zeal.

Our Senses, Our Appetite, And Our Passions Are Our Lawful And Faithful Guides In Things That Relate Solely To This Life.

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

Occupation Alone Is Happiness.

A Scotchman Must Be A Very Sturdy Moralist Who Does Not Love Scotland Better Than Truth.

Every Man May Be Observed To Have A Certain Strain Of Lamentation, Some Peculiar Theme Of Complaint On Which He Dwells In His Moments Of Dejection.

Who Left Nothing Of Authorship Untouched, And Touched Nothing Which He Did Not Adorn. [lat., Qui Nullum Fere Scribendi Genus Non Tetigit; Nullum Quod Tetigit Non Ornavit.]

A Married Man Has Many Cares, But A Bachelor No Pleasures.

To Make Dictionaries Is Dull Work.

Friendship, Like Love, Is Destroyed By Long Absence, Though It May Be Increased By Short Intermissions.

Nothing Has So Exposed Men Of Learning To Contempt And Ridicule As Their Ignorance Of Things Which Are Known To All But Themselves. Those Who Have Been Taught To Consider The Institutions Of The Schools As Giving The Last Perfection To Human Abilities Are Surprised To See Men Wrinkled With Study, Yet Wanting To Be Instructed In The Minute Circumstances Of Propriety, Or The Necessary Form Of Daily Transaction; And Quickly Shake Off Their Reverence For Modes Of Education Which They Find To Produce No Ability Above The Rest Of Mankind.

Pain Is Less Subject Than Pleasure To Careless Expression.

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

Exert Your Talents, And Distinguish Yourself, And Don't Think Of Retiring From The World, Until The World Will Be Sorry That You Retire.

Words Are But The Signs Of Ideas.

When Emulation Leads Us To Strive For Self-elevation By Merit Alone, And Not By Belittling Another, Then It Is One Of The Grandest Possible Incentives To Action.

The Chief Art Of Learning, As Locke Has Observed, Is To Attempt But Little At A Time. The Widest Excursions Of The Mind Are Made By Short Flights Frequently Repeated; The Most Lofty Fabrics Of Science Are Formed By The Continued Accumulation Of Single Propositions.

Life Affords No Higher Pleasure Than That Of Surmounting Difficulties, Passing From One Step Of Success To Another, Forming New Wishes And Seeing Them Gratified.

The Faults Of A Man Loved Or Honoured Sometimes Steal Secretly And Imperceptibly Upon The Wise And Virtuous, But By Injudicious Fondness Or Thoughtless Vanity Are Adopted With Design.

Sleep Undisturbed Within This Peaceful Shrine, Till Angels Wake Thee With A Note Like Thine.

Those Who Have Any Intention Of Deviating From The Beaten Roads Of Life, And Acquiring A Reputation Superior To Names Hourly Swept Away By Time Among The Refuse Of Fame, Should Add To Their Reason And Their Spirit The Power Of Persisting In Their Pur

Suspicion Is Very Often A Useless Pain.

Never Speak Of A Man In His Own Presence. It Is Always Indelicate, And May Be Offensive .

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

Hope Is Necessary In Every Condition.

As Pride Sometimes Is Hid Under Humility, Idleness If Often Covered By Turbulence And Hurry.

There Is Less Flogging In Our Great Schools Than Formerly-but Then Less Is Learned There; So What The Boys Get At One End They Lose At The Other.

Always, Sir, Set A High Value On Spontaneous Kindness.

No Member Of A Society Has A Right To Teach Any Doctrine Contrary To What The Society Holds To Be True.

Claret Is The Liquor For Boys; Port For Men; But He Who Aspires To Be A Hero Must Drink Brandy.

Poetry Cannot Be Translated; And, Therefore, It Is The Poets That Preserve The Languages; For We Would Not Be At The Trouble To Learn A Language If We Could Have All That Is Written In It Just As Well In A Translation. But As The Beauties Of Poetry Cannot Be Preserved In Any Language Except That In Which It Was Originally Written, We Learn The Language.

Curiosity Is One Of The Permanent And Certain Characteristics Of A Vigorous Intellect. Every Advance Into Knowledge Opens New Prospects, And Produces New Incitements To Farther Progress.

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.

Disease Generally Begins That Equality Which Death Completes.

No Man Will Be Found In Whose Mind Airy Notions Do Not Sometimes Tyrannize, And Force Him To Hope Or Fear Beyond The Limits Of Sober Probability.

Merit Rather Enforces Respect Than Attracts Fondness.

Agriculture Not Only Gives Riches To A Nation, But The Only Riches She Can Call Her Own.

The Love Of Life Is Necessary To The Vigorous Prosecution Of Any Undertaking

We Are Inclined To Believe Those Whom We Do Not Know Because They Have Never Deceived Us.

Poverty Is Often Concealed In Splendor, And Often In Extravagance. It Is The Task Of Many People To Conceal Their Neediness From Others. Consequently They Support Themselves By Temporary Means, And Everyday Is Lost In Contriving For Tomorrow.

He Who Writes Much Will Not Easily Escape A Manner, Such A Recurrence Of Particular Modes As May Be Easily Noted.

Few Things Are So Liberally Bestowed, Or Squandered With So Little Effect, As Good Advice.

All Argument Is Against It; But All Belief Is For It.

We Love To Expect, And When Expectation Is Either Disappointed Or Gratified, We Want To Be Again Expecting.

Life Is Surely Given Us For Higher Purposes Than To Gather What Our Ancestors Have Wisely Thrown Away, And To Learn What Is Of No Value But Because It Has Been Forgotten.

Wit Will Never Make A Man Rich, But There Are Places Where Riches Will Always Make A Wit.

That All Who Are Happy Are Equally Happy Is Not True. A Peasant And A Philosopher May Be Equally Satisfied, But Not Equally Happy. A Small Drinking Glass And A Large One May Be Equally Full, But The Large One Holds More Than The Small.

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

It Is In Refinement And Elegance That The Civilized Man Differs From The Savage.

Those Whose Abilities Or Knowledge Incline Them Most To Deviate From The General Round Of Life Are Recalled From Eccentricity By The Laws Of Their Existence.

Network. Anything Reticulated Or Decussated At Equal Distances, With Interstices Between The Intersections.

In General Those Parents Have The Most Reverence Who Most Deserve It; For He That Lives Well Cannot Be Despised.

Greece Appears To Be The Fountain Of Knowledge; Rome Of Elegance

Sorrow Is The Mere Rust Of The Soul. Activity Will Cleanse And Brighten It.

To Exact Of Every Man Who Writes That He Should Say Something New, Would Be To Reduce Authors To A Small Number; To Oblige The Most Fertile Genius To Say Only What Is New, Would Be To Contract His Volumes To A Few Pages. Yet, Surely, There Ought To Be Some Bounds To Repetition; Libraries Ought No More To Be Heaped For Ever With The Same Thoughts Differently Expressed, Than With The Same Books Differently Decorated.

Knowledge Is Praised And Desired By Multitudes Whom Her Charms Could Never Rouse From The Couch Of Sloth; Whom The Faintest Invitation Of Pleasure Draws Away From Their Studies; To Whom Any Other Method Of Wearing The Day Is More Eligible Than The Use Of Books, And Who Are More Easily Engaged By Any Conversation Than Such As May Rectify Their Notions Or Enlarge Their Comprehension.

The Uncertainty Of Death Is, In Effect, The Great Support Of The Whole System Of Life.

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.

A Quibble Is To Shakespeare What Luminous Vapours Are To The Traveller: He Follows It At All Adventures; It Is Sure To Lead Him Out Of His Way And Sure To Engulf Him In The Mire.

A Contempt Of The Monuments And The Wisdom Of The Past, May Be Justly Reckoned One Of The Reigning Follies Of These Days, To Which Pride And Idleness Have Equally Contributed.

Get Together A Hundred Or Two Men, However Sensible They May Be, And You Are Very Likely To Have A Mob.

All Discourse Of Which Others Cannot Partake Is Not Only An Irksome Usurpation Of The Time Devoted To Pleasure And Entertainment, But, What Never Fails To Excite Resentment, An Insolent Assertion Of Superiority, And A Triumph Over Less Enlightened Understandings. The Pedant Is, Therefore, Not Only Heard With Weariness But Malignity; And Those Who Conceive Themselves Insulted By His Knowledge Never Fail To Tell With Acrimony How Injudiciously It Was Exerted.

To Revenge Reasonable Incredulity By Refusing Evidence, Is A Degree Of Insolence With Which The World Is Not Yet Acquainted; And Stubborn Audacity Is The Last Refuge Of Guilt.

Hope Itself Is A Species Of Happiness, And, Perhaps, The Chief Happiness Which This World Affords; But, Like All Other Pleasures Immoderately Enjoyed, The Excesses Of Hope Must Be Expiated By Pain.

The Church Does Not Superstitiously Observe Days, Merely As Days, But As Memorials Of Important Facts. Christmas Might Be Kept As Well Upon One Day Of The Year As Another; But There Should Be A Stated Day For Commemorating The Birth Of Our Saviour, Because There Is Danger That What May Be Done On Any Day, Will Be Neglected.

Every Man Has A Right To Utter What He Thinks Truth, And Every Other Man Has A Right To Knock Him Down For It. Martyrdom Is The Test.

Freedom Of Speech

For Patience, Sov'reign O'er Transmuted Ill.

It Is Not Easy To Surround Life With Any Circumstances In Which Youth Will Not Be Delightful.

We Suffer Equal Pain From The Pertinacious Adhesion Of Unwelcome Images, As From The Evanescence Of Those Which Are Pleasing And Useful.

With What Hope Can We Endeavor To Persuade The Ladies That The Time Spent At The Toilet Is Lost In Vanity.

In A Man's Letters You Know, Madam, His Soul Lies Naked, His Letters Are Only The Mirror Of His Breast, Whatever Passes Within Him Is Shown Undisguised In Its Natural Process. Nothing Is Inverted, Nothing Distorted, You See Systems In Their Elements, You Discover Actions In Their Motives.

Do Not Accustom Yourself To Consider Debt Only As An Inconvenience; You Will Find It A Calamity.

Don't, Sir, Accustom Yourself To Use Big Words For Little Matters.

Lawful And Settled Authority Is Very Seldom Resisted When It Is Well Employed.

Few Moments Are More Pleasing Than Those In Which The Mind Is Concerting Measures For A New Undertaking.

Expectation Improperly Indulged In Must End In Disappointment.

Those Who Have No Power To Judge Of Past Times But By Their Own, Should Always Doubt Their Conclusions

Since Life Itself Is Uncertain, Nothing Which Has Life For Its Basis Can Boast Much Stability.

It Is The Condition Of Our Present State To See More Than We Can Attain; The Exactest Vigilance And Caution Can Never Maintain A Single Day Of Unmingled Innocence.

He Who Praises Everybody, Praises Nobody.

I Have Always Considered It As Treason Against The Great Republic Of Human Nature, To Make Any Man's Virtues The Means Of Deceiving Him.

The Fortitude Which Has Encountered No Dangers, That Prudence Which Has Surmounted No Difficulties, That Integrity Which Has Been Attacked By No Temptation, Can At Best Be Considered But As Gold Not Yet Brought To The Test, Of Which Therefore The True Value Cannot Be Assigned.

While An Author Is Yet Living, We Estimate His Powers By His Worst Performance; And When He Is Dead, We Rate Him By His Best.

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

Gratitude Is A Species Of Justice.

A Writer Who Obtains His Full Purpose Loses Himself In His Own Lustre.

In Life's Last Scene What Prodigies Surprise, Fears Of The Brave, And Follies Of The Wise! From Marlborough's Eyes The Streams Of Dotage Flow, And Swift Expires A Driveller And A Show.

In His Comic Scenes, Shakespeare Seems To Produce, Without Labor, What No Labor Can Improve.

He Who Would Have Fine Guests, Let Him Have A Fine Wife.

Authors And Lovers Always Suffer Some Infatuation, From Which Only Absence Can Set Them Free.

He That Would Be Superior To External Influences Must First Become Superior To His Own Passions.

Self-love Is Often Rather Arrogant Than Blind; It Does Not Hide Our Faults From Ourselves, But Persuades Us That They Escape The Notice Of Others.

There Ambush Here Relentless Ruffians Lay, And Here The Fell Attorney Prowls For Prey.

Truth Has No Gradations; Nothing Which Admits Of Increase Can Be So Much What It Is, As Truth Is Truth. There May Be A Strange Thing, And A Thing More Strange. But If A Proposition Be True, There Can Be None More True.

Resentment Gratifies Him Who Intended An Injury, And Pains Him Unjustly Who Did Not Intend It.

He That Never Thinks Can Never Be Wise.

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

The Real Satisfaction Which Praise Can Afford, Is When What Is Repeated Aloud Agrees With The Whispers Of Conscience, By Showing Us That We Have Not Endeavored To Deserve Well In Vain.

For Who Is Pleased With Himself.

Prudence Operates On Life In The Same Manner As Rule Of Composition; It Produces Vigilance Rather Than Elevation; Rather Prevents Loss Than Procures Advantage; And Often Miscarriages, But Seldom Reaches Either Power Or Honor.

I Love The Acquaintance Of Young People; Because, In The First Place, I Do Not Like To Think Myself Growing Old. In The Next Place, Young Acquaintances Must Last Longest, If They Do Last; And Then, Sir, Young Men Have More Virtue Than Old Men; They Have More Generous Sentiments In Every Respect.

Every Man Is Of Importance To Himself, And, Therefore, In His Own Opinion, To Others; And, Supposing The World Already Acquainted With His Pleasures And His Pains, Is Perhaps The First To Publish Injuries Or Misfortunes Which Had Never Been Known Unless Related By Himself, And At Which Those That Hear Them Will Only Laugh, For No Man Sympathises With The Sorrows Of Vanity.

No People Can Be Great Who Have Ceased To Be Virtuous.

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.

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.

I Remember A Passage In Goldsmith's "vicar Of Wakefield," Which He Was Afterwards Fool Enough To Expunge: "i Do Not Love A Man Who Is Zealous For Nothing.

Judgment Is Forced Upon Us By Experience

The Man Who Feels Himself Ignorant Should, At Least, Be Modest.

To Paint Things As They Are Requires A Minute Attention, And Employs The Memory Rather Than The Fancy.

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.

I Believe Marriages Would In General Be As Happy, And Often More So, If They Were All Made By The Lord Chancellor, Upon A Due Consideration Of The Characters And Circumstances, Without The Parties Having Any Choice In The Matter.

When Making Your Choice In Life, Do Not Neglect To Live.

To Strive With Difficulties, And To Conquer Them, Is The Highest Human Felicity; The Next Is, To Strive, And Deserve To Conquer: But He Whose Life Has Passed Without A Contest, And Who Can Boast Neither Success Nor Merit, Can Survey Himself Only As A Useless Filler Of Existence; Ad If He Is Content With His Own Character, Must Owe His Satisfaction To Insensibility.

When A Man Is Tried Of London, He Is Tired Of Life.

Pope Had Been Flattered Till He Thought Himself One Of The Moving Powers Of The System Of Life. When He Talked Of Laying Down His Pen, Those Who Sat Round Him Intreated And Implored; And Self-love Did Not Suffer Him To Suspect That They Went Away And Laughed.

Trust As Little As You Can To Report, And Examine All You Can By Your Own Senses.

The Necessary Connexion Of Representatives With Taxes, Seems To Have Sunk Deep Into Many Of Those Minds, That Admit Sounds, Without Their Meaning.

Deceit And Falsehood, Whatever Conveniences They May For A Time Promise Or Produce, Are, In The Sum Of Life, Obstacles To Happiness. Those Who Profit By The Cheat Distrust The Deceiver; And The Act By Which Kindness Was Sought Puts An End To Confidence.

We Often Need Reminding Even If We Do Not Often Need Educating.

Languages Are The Pedigree Of Nations.

Money Confounds Subordination.

The Authors That In Any Nation Last From Age To Age Are Very Few, Because There Are Very Few That Have Any Other Claim To Notice Than That They Catch Hold On Present Curiosity, And Gratify Some Accidental Desire, Or Produce Some Temporary Conveniency.

Credulity Is The Common Failing Of Inexperienced Virtue; And He Who Is Spontaneously Suspicious May Justly Be Charged With Radical Corruption.

The Worst Evils Are Those That Never Arrive.

Of The Present State, Whatever It Be, We Feel And Are Forced To Confess The Misery; Yet When The Same State Is Again At A Distance, Imagination Paints It As Desirable.

By Forbearing To Do What May Innocently Be Done, We May Add Hourly New Vigor To Resolution.

It Was His Peculiar Happiness That He Scarcely Ever Found A Stranger Whom He Did Not Leave A Friend; But It Must Likewise Be Added, That He Had Not Often A Friend Long Without Obliging Him To Become A Stranger.

Solitude Is Dangerous To Reason, Without Being Favourable To Virtue. Remember That The Solitary Mortal Is Certainly Luxurious, Probably Superstitious, And Possibly Mad.

Vulgar And Inactive Minds Confound Familiarity With Knowledge, And Conceive Themselves Informed Of The Whole Nature Of Things, When They Are Shown Their Form Or Told Their Use.

Genius Now And Then Produces A Lucky Trifle. We Still Read The Dove Of Anacreon, And Sparrow Of Catullus; And A Writer Naturally Pleases Himself With A Performance Which Owes Nothing To The Subject.

To Live Without Feeling Or Exciting Sympathy, To Be Fortunate Without Adding To The Felicity Of Others, Or Afflicted Without Tasting The Balm Of Pity, Is A State More Gloomy Than Solitude; It Is Not Retreat, But Exclusion From Mankind. Marriage Has Many Pains, But Celibacy Has No Pleasures.

Faction Seldom Leaves A Man Honest, However It Might Find Him.

Here Lies Our Good Edmund, Whose Genius Was Such, We Scarcely Can Praise It Or Blame It Too Much; Who, Born For The Universe, Narrowed His Mind, And To Party Gave Up What Was Meant For Mankind.

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

Sir, He [bolingbroke] Was A Scoundrel And A Coward: A Scoundrel For Charging A Blunderbuss Against Religion And Morality; A Coward, Because He Had Not Resolution To Fire It Off Himself, But Left Half A Crown To A Beggarly Scotsman To Draw The Trigger At His Death.

To Talk In Public, To Think In Solitude, To Read And To Hear, To Inquire And Answer Inquiries, Is The Business Of The Scholar

The Authour Who Imitates His Predecessors Only By Furnishing Himself With Thoughts And Elegances Out Of The Same General Magazine Of Literature, Can With Little More Propriety Be Reproached As A Plagiary, Than The Architect Can Be Censured As A Mean Copier Of Angelo Or Wren, Because He Digs His Marble Out Of The Same Quarry, Squares His Stones By The Same Art, And Unites Them In Columns Of The Same Orders.

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.

It Is So Far From Being Natural For A Man And Woman To Live In A State Of Marriage, That We Find All The Motives Which They Have For Remaining In That Connection, And The Restraints Which Civilised Society Imposes To Prevent Separation, Are Hardly Sufficient To Keep Them Together.

[the Poet] Must Write As The Interpreter Of Nature And The Legislator Of Mankind, And Consider Himself As Presiding Over The Thoughts And Manners Of Future Generations, As A Being Superior To Time And Place.

A Continual Feast Of Commendation Is Only To Be Obtained By Merit Or By Wealth: Many Are Therefore Obliged To Content Themselves With Single Morsels, And Recompense The Infrequency Of Their Enjoyment By Excess And Riot, Whenever Fortune Sets The Banquet Before Them.

Dictionaries Are Like Watches, The Worst Is Better Than None And The Best Cannot Be Expected To Go Quite True.

The Animadversions Of Critics Are Commonly Such As May Easily Provoke The Sedatest Writer To Some Quickness Of Resentment And Asperity Of Reply.

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.

Celestial Wisdom Calms The Mind.

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.

I Am A Friend To Subordination, As Most Conducive To The Happiness Of Society. There Is A Reciprocal Pleasure In Governing And Being Governed.

Why, Sir, Sherry Is Dull, Naturally Dull; But It Must Have Taken Him A Great Deal Of Pains To Become What We Now See Him. Such An Excess Of Stupidity, Sir, Is Not In Nature.

Friendship Is Not Always The Sequel Of Obligation.

To Buried Merit Rise The Tardy Bust.

You Think I Love Flattery (says Dr. Johnson), And So I Do; But A Little Too Much Always Disgusts Me: That Fellow Richardson, On The Contrary, Could Not Be Contented To Sail Quietly Down The Stream Of Reputation, Without Longing To Taste The Froth From Every Stroke Of The Oar.

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.

None But Those Who Have Learned The Art Of Subjecting Their Senses As Well As Reason To Hypothetical Systems Can Be Persuaded By The Most Specious Rhetorician That The Lots Of Life Are Equal; Yet It Cannot Be Denied That Every One Has His Peculiar Pleasures And Vexations, That External Accidents Operate Variously Upon Different Minds, And That No Man Can Exactly Judge From His Own Sensations What Another Would Feel In The Same Circumstances.

When The Original Is Well Chosen And Judiciously Copied, The Imitator Often Arrives At Excellence Which He Could Never Have Attained Without Direction; For Few Are Formed With Abilities To Discover New Possibilities Of Excellence, And To Distinguish Themselves By Means Never Tried Before.

I Hate Mankind, For I Think Myself One Of The Best Of Them, And I Know How Bad I Am.

You May Abuse A Tragedy, Though You Cannot Write One. You May Scold A Carpenter Who Has Made You A Bad Table, Though You Cannot Make A Table. It Is Not Your Trade To Make Tables.

A Generous And Elevated Mind Is Distinguished By Nothing More Certainly Than An Eminent Degree Of Curiosity.

What Signifies Protesting So Against Flattery When A Person Speaks Well Of One, It Must Either Be True Or False, You Know If True, Let Us Rejoice In His Good Opinion If He Lies, It Is A Proof At Least That He Loves More To Please Me, Than To Sit S

To Be Flattered Is Grateful, Even When We Know That Our Praises Are Not Believed By Those Who Pronounce Them; For They Prove, At Least, Our Power, And Show That Our Favour Is Valued, Since It Is Purchased By The Meanness Of Falsehood.

Books To Judicious Compilers, Are Useful; To Particular Arts And Professions, They Are Absolutely Necessary; To Men Of Real Science, They Are Tools: But More Are Tools To Them.

It Generally Happens That Assurance Keeps An Even Pace With Ability.

Whoever Envies Another Confesses His Superiority.

Plenty Is The Original Cause Of Many Of Our Needs; And Even The Poverty, Which Is So Frequent And Distressful In Civilized Nations, Proceeds Often From That Change Of Manners Which Opulence Has Produced. Nature Makes Us Poor Only When We Want Necessaries; But Custom Gives The Name Of Poverty To The Want Of Superfluities.

Was Ever Poet So Trusted Before?

When A Man Marries A Widow His Jealousies Revert To The Past: No Man Is As Good As His Wife Says Her First Husband Was

Such Are The Vicissitudes Of The World, Through All Its Parts, That Day And Night, Labor And Rest, Hurry And Retirement, Endear Each Other; Such Are The Changes That Keep The Mind In Action: We Desire, We Pursue, We Obtain, We Are Satiated; We Desire Something Else And Begin A New Pursuit.

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

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.

Had I Learned To Fiddle, I Should Have Done Nothing Else.

Smoking Is A Shocking Thing - Blowing Smoke Out Of Our Mouths Into Other People's Mouths, Eyes, And Noses, And Having The Same Thing Done To Us.

Just Praise Is Only A Debt, But Flattery Is A Present. The Acknowledgment Of Those Virtues On Which Conscience Congratulates Us Is A Tribute That We Can At Any Tine Exact With Confidence; But The Celebration Of Those Which We Only Feign, Or Desire Without Any Vigorous Endeavours To Attain Them, Is Received As A Confession Of Sovereignty Over Regions Never Conquered, As A Favourable Decision Of Disputable Claims, And Is More Welcome As More Gratuitous.

The Mental Disease Of The Present Generation Is Impatience Of Study, Contempt Of The Great Masters Of Ancient Wisdom, And A Disposition To Rely Wholly Upon Unassisted Genius And Natural Sagacity.

Studious To Please, Yet Not Ashamed To Fail.

He That Thinks He Can Afford To Be Negligent Is Not Far From Being Poor.

Players, Sir! I Look On Them As No Better Than Creatures Set Upon Tables And Joint Stools To Make Faces And Produce Laughter, Like Dancing Dogs.

He That Would Travel For The Entertainment Of Others Should Remember That The Great Object Of Remark Is Human Life.

Books Have Always A Secret Influence On The Understanding; We Cannot At Pleasure Obliterate Ideas; He That Reads Books Of Science, Thogh Without Any Fixed Desire Of Improvement, Will Grow More Knowing.

Beauty, Without Kindness, Dies Unenjoyed And Undelighting.

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

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

The Stream Of Time, Which Is Continually Washing The Dissoluble Fabrics Of Other Poets, Passes Without Injury By The Adamant Of Shakespeare.

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.

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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