The rest of Johnson

Before finishing with Johnson...

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do." ~ Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

For the planners...

"'There are a thousand familiar disputes which reason can never decide; questions that elude investigation, and make logick ridiculous; cases where something must be done, and where little can be said.'" (History of Rasselass, Samuel Johnson pg. 57)

For seekers of happiness...

"'Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract desire, are so constituted that, as we approach one, we recede from the other. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both but, by too much prudence, may pass between them as too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long consideration; he does nothing who endeavors to do more than i allowed to humanity...Of the blessings set before you make your choice and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring; no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile'" (Johnson 58).

For students and politicians...

"'If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent: if we are entrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil who refuses to learn how he might prevent it'" (Johnson 60).

For the saddened or depressed...

"'The state of a mind oppressed with sudden calamity... is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new created earth, who, when the first night came upon them, supposed that day would never return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled: yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort, do as the savages would have done, had they put out their eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired. To lose much at once is inconvenient to either, but while the vital powers remain uninjured, nature will find some means of reparation. Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion'" (Johnson 69).

For the troublemakers...

"The memory of mischief is no desirable fame" (Johnson 84).

For the dreamers...

"All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity" (Johnson 84).

Not a very uplifting outlook, I know... As a priest said in Italy, it is easy to destroy something (such as criticizing things that are not good) but it is much more difficult to create something (such as a way to improve what is at fault).

For those seeking fame, and for the old...

"'Praise,' said the sage, with a sigh, 'is to an old man an empty sound'"(Johnson 87).

For the narrow-minded...

"'For nothing is more common than to call our own condition, the condition of life'" (Johnson 88).

For the unsatisfied...

"'Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish it so change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something to morrow which I never saw before'" (Johnson 92)