Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750
"This inquiry seems to have been neglected for want of remembering, that all action has its origin in the mind, and that therefore to suffer the thoughts to be vitiated, is to poison the fountains of morality."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750
"Some of these instructors of mankind have not contented themselves with checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire, but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and not only to confine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a dead calm."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750
"Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very useful monitors, and have left many proofs of strong reason, deep penetration, and accurate attention to the affairs of life, which it is now our business to separate from the foam of a boiling imagination, and to apply judiciou...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, March 5, 1751
"Thus, in a short time, I had heated my imagination to such a state of activity and ebullition, that upon every occasion it fumed away in bursts of wit, and evaporations of gaiety."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, March 30, 1751
"He that will not suffer himself to be discouraged by fancied impossibilities, may sometimes find his abilities invigorated by the necessity of exerting them in short intervals, as the force of a current is increased by the contraction of its channel."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1751
"It is, perhaps, not impossible to promote the cure of this mental malady, by close application to some new study, which may pour in fresh ideas, and keep curiosity in perpetual motion."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Saturday, February 29, 1752
"He retired again to his private chamber, and sought for consolation in his own mind; one thought flowed in upon another; a long succession of images seized his attention; the moments crept imperceptibly away through the gloom of pensiveness, till, having recovered his tranquillity, he lifted his...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Tuesday, August 14, 1753
"But from the opposite errour, from torpid despondency, can come no advantage; it is the frost of the soul, which binds up all its powers, and congeals life in perpetual sterility."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1754
"Thus my Conscience being tossed in the Waves of a scrupulous Mind, and partly Despair to have any other Issue than I had already by this Lady now my Wife, it behoved me further to consider the State of this Realm, and the Danger it stood in for lack of a Prince to succeed me."
preview | full record— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)
Date: 1755
"The Observations to be made, by that Means, refine the Understanding and improve the Judgment, as something is to be gathered from the various Dispositions of People in the highest and lowest Stations of Life; which Persons of Reflection may render greatly con|ducive, in clearing and purging the...
preview | full record— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)