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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Present
Imagination
Paints
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Whatever
Desirable
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Forced
Feel
Misery
Feels
Distance
Paint

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There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
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We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures
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The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity.
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The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
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The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous yet fame, power, and riches, are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependence, and poverty of greater numbers.
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Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence by asserting that all conditions are leveled by death a position which, however it may defect the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched.
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He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans we may therefore subject them to government.
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The authors that in any nation last from age to age are very few, because there are very few that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or produce some temporary conveniency.
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Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
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As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.
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Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game, Where wasted nations raise a single name And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret, From age to age in everlasting debt Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
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I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
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He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
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A mere literary man is a dull man a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
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Riches seldom make their owners rich.
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Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
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Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.
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We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
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Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
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To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
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