Date: February 4, 1752

"My parents, though otherwise not great philosophers, knew the force of early education, and took care that the blank of my understanding should be filled with impressions of the value of money."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1753

"The knowledge of good is form'd in our souls, as the seeds are in the ground; there is a time when they lie conceal'd, a time when they spring forth, and a time when they bear fruit"

— Du Bosc, Jacques (d. 1660)

Date: 1753

"These divine foundations can never be shaken; all the good that is imprinted upon this rasa tabula can never be effaced; this holy favour with which a new vessel is imbued, will last a long time."

— Du Bosc, Jacques (d. 1660)

Date: Tuesday, March 20, 1753

"[I]t is to be regretted, therefore, that he did not exercise his mind less, and his body more: since by this means, it is highly probable, that though he would not then have astonished with the blaze of a comet, he would yet have shone with the permanent radiance of a fixed star."

— 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."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, August 28, 1753

"To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to other...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, October 2, 1753

"It has been discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, that the distinct and primogenial colours are only seven; but every eye can witness, that from various mixtures, in various proportions, infinite diversifications of tints may be produced. In like manner, the passions of the mind, which put the world i...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: June, 1753

"It is indeed a curious and interesting letter, and sufficient (if such a thing is possible) to make the Jacobites themselves ashamed of Jacobitism; but shews plainly, that lord Bolingbroke was a slave to his passions, passions too of the most malignant nature, and one who would stick at nothing ...

— Anonymous

Date: 1753

"With regard to Vulcan's Man, he said he ought to have made a Window in his Breast, Hesiod makes Momus the Son of Somnus and Nox."

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

Date: 1753

"The Moral of this Fable is, that Humanity is the Characteristick of Man; and that a cruel Soul in a human Body, is only a Wolf in Disguise."

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)