Date: 1759

"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time for the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emasc...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful go...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"He compared reason to the sun, of which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion, and delusive in its direction."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent, and various in their parts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"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."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1759

"If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)