Date: Saturday, April 6, 1751

"That to please the Lord and Father of the universe, is the supreme interest of created and dependent beings, as it is easily proved, has been universally confessed; and since all rational agents are conscious of having neglected or violated the duties prescribed to them, the fear of being reject...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 9, 1751

"But it is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation; and that the powers of the mind, when they are unbound and expanded by the sunshine of felicity, more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom into goodness."

— 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: 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: 1751

"in consequence of which, he mustered up the ideas of his first passion, and set them in opposition to those of this new and dangerous attachment; by which means, he kept the balance in equilibrio, and his bosom tolerably quiet."

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

The imagination may be "incessantly haunted" by the "apprehensions of a jail"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

Ideas of a love object with another lover may haunt the imagination

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: Saturday, December 21, 1751

"A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint or seminal idea, which, enlarged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened in...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only th...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)