Wit and Wisdom of Samuel JohnsonClarendon Press, 1888 - 323 pages |
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Page xiv
... pleasure . We read Milton for instruction , retire harassed and over - burdened , and look else- where for recreation ; we desert our master , and seek for com- panions 2. This truth , if it be a truth , most men would have hidden from ...
... pleasure . We read Milton for instruction , retire harassed and over - burdened , and look else- where for recreation ; we desert our master , and seek for com- panions 2. This truth , if it be a truth , most men would have hidden from ...
Page xvi
... pleasures of life , because life is uncertain and short . ' ' If the world be worth winning , ' he writes to Mrs. Thrale , ' let us enjoy it ; if it is to be despised , let us despise it by con- viction . But the world is not to be ...
... pleasures of life , because life is uncertain and short . ' ' If the world be worth winning , ' he writes to Mrs. Thrale , ' let us enjoy it ; if it is to be despised , let us despise it by con- viction . But the world is not to be ...
Page xvii
... pleasure or pain . He belongs to the most accurate class of the observers of human nature , for he never confounds what is with what ought to be . Happiness is not , he maintains , the unfailing consequence of virtue . ' We do not ...
... pleasure or pain . He belongs to the most accurate class of the observers of human nature , for he never confounds what is with what ought to be . Happiness is not , he maintains , the unfailing consequence of virtue . ' We do not ...
Page xvii
... pleasure . We read Milton for instruction , retire harassed and over - burdened , and look else- where for recreation ; we desert our master , and seek for com- panions 2. This truth , if it be a truth , most men would have hidden from ...
... pleasure . We read Milton for instruction , retire harassed and over - burdened , and look else- where for recreation ; we desert our master , and seek for com- panions 2. This truth , if it be a truth , most men would have hidden from ...
Page xvii
... pleasures of life , because life is uncertain and short ' . ' ' If the world be worth winning , ' he writes to Mrs. Thrale , ' let us enjoy it ; if it is to be despised , let us despise it by con- viction . But the world is not to be ...
... pleasures of life , because life is uncertain and short ' . ' ' If the world be worth winning , ' he writes to Mrs. Thrale , ' let us enjoy it ; if it is to be despised , let us despise it by con- viction . But the world is not to be ...
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Common terms and phrases
Book BOSWELL Boswell's C. S. Jerram character contempt Crown 8vo death delight Demy 8vo desire Dictionary dreadful Edidit endeavour English Notes evil fear feel Fourth Edition George Saintsbury Glossary Grammar Greek happiness Henry Sweet History honour hope human Idler Introduction and Notes Isaac Bayley Balfour James Legge labour Latin learning live LL.D M.A. 2 vols M.A. Extra fcap M.A. Second Edition M.A. Third Edition mankind Max Müller Medium 8vo mind misery nature never Novum Testamentum Graece once opinion Oxford pain Paper covers passions perhaps Piozzi Letters Piozzi's Anecdotes pleased pleasure praise Rambler Rasselas reason Revised Robinson Ellis Royal 8vo Samuel Johnson Schools Selections Small 4to stiff covers talk tell Text things thought tion Translated truth University vanity viii virtue W. W. Skeat Wisdom of Samuel wish Wit and Wisdom write
Popular passages
Page 34 - The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.
Page 34 - Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help...
Page 133 - His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void ; And sure the eternal Master found The single talent well employ'd.
Page 33 - My Lord, I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship.
Page 233 - No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.
Page 21 - I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful ; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use ; but...
Page 153 - DISORDERS of intellect, answered Imlac, happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason, who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command.
Page 132 - Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away. Well tried through many a varying year, See Levett to the grave descend ; Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills Affection's eye, Obscurely wise and coarsely kind ; Nor...
Page 261 - When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided who, being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature and clear the world...
Page 96 - Imlac,) I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth...