The works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 5

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G. Offor, 1818
 

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Page 293 - With observations like these the prince amused himself as he returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he bewailed them.
Page 343 - ... and their tongues with- censure. They are peevish at home, and malevolent abroad ; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their business and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude : it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy...
Page 379 - He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not ; for who is pleased with what he is ? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights,...
Page 311 - Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified : no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley.
Page 335 - ... that I was rather impelled by resentment than led by devotion into solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that I have lost so much, and have gained so little. In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with the advantages of society, and resolve to return into the world to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.
Page 295 - Look round and tell me which of your wants is without supply : if you want nothing, how are you unhappy ?" " That I want nothing," said the prince, " or that I know not what I want, is the cause of my complaint...
Page 301 - I am afraid,' said he to the artist, 'that your imagination prevails over your skill, and that you now tell me rather what you wish than what you know. Every animal has his element assigned him; the birds have the air, and man and beasts the earth.
Page 311 - The business of a poet," said Imlac, " is to examine, not the individual, but the species ; to remark general properties and large appearances ; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest.
Page 196 - Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of larger meaning...
Page 289 - The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry.

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