A. Johnson
A. Johnson
liberty clamour grants
They who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.
humanity desire pleasure
We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
home ambition men
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.
office humanity thousand
The necessities of our condition require a thousand offices of tenderness, which mere regard for the species will never dictate.
envy humanity would-be
All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied.
law humanity existence
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.
sunshine clouds humanity
Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud.
summer men hands
The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind.
humanity customs universal
The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.
disappointment grief drawing
It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs shuld not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp.
lonely loneliness care
In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.
sloth laziness kind
There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.
crucible body limits
I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
respect men giving
Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.