Date: Tuesday, November 19, 1751

"We frequently fall into errour and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be e...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, November 26, 1751

"I therefore resolved for a time to shut my books, and learn again the art of conversation; to defecate and clear my mind by brisker motions, and stronger impulses; and to unite myself once more to the living generation."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"The writer of essays escapes many embarrassments to which a large work would have exposed him; he seldom harasses his reason with long trains of consequences, dims his eyes with the perusal of antiquated volumes, or burthens his memory with great accumulations of preparatory knowledge."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, January 8, 1751

"It is necessary to that perfection of which our present state is capable, that the mind and body should both be kept in action; that neither the faculties of the one nor of the other be suffered to grow lax or torpid for want of use; that neither health be purchased by voluntary submission to ig...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, January 8, 1751

"It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, January 8, 1751

"The old peripatetick principle, that Nature abhors a vacuum, may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however absurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, February 2, 1751

"Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind; and therefore Boileau justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and been admired through all the changes which the mind of man has suffered from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary customs, ha...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 5, 1751

"There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his knowledge oblig...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, February 9, 1751

"The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice and variety of language readily supply him with just representations."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"The disproportions of absurdity grow less and less visible, as we are reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falsehood by long use, is assimilated to the mind, as poison to the body."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)