A. Johnson
A. Johnson
punishment silence
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
choices heaven resignation
Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
practice superstitions conviction
Repentance, however difficult to be practiced, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.
luxury rudeness spite
Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
love-is self self-love
Self-love is a busy prompter.
yield may littles
It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.
forests
Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
scene comic produce
In his comic scenes, Shakespeare seems to produce, without labor, what no labor can improve.
fabric injury poet
The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.
retirement solitude mind
The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed everything generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy.
style mind benefits
Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.
pleasure subordination governing
I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
pain useless suspicion
Suspicion is very often a useless pain.
mind taxation sound
The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning.