Focus
Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. —Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson There is no temper more unpropitious…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Sensibility and Sense
“This is the most sensible man that I ever say in my life.”—Mrs. Porter, on Dr. Johnson, quoted in W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson I live with the most sensible person I’ve ever seen in…
Being So Inclined
[Samuel Johnson] said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely…
Welcome the Test
No man can form a just estimate of his own powers by unactive speculation. That fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by…
Favorite Simone Weil Passages
It is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin. Method of investigation— as soon as one has arrived at any position, try to find in what sense the contrary is true….
Diligence
Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted, when a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises…
Missing the Mark
Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron. –Samuel Johnson, in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson The tribe is likewise very numerous…
Long Live Vivacity!
Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.—Samuel Johnson, in A Johnson Sampler, edited by Henry Darcy Curwen. I’ve never thought about vivacity in this way …To master an…
Up to Me
Let us cease to consider what, perhaps, may never happen, and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not endeavour to modify the motions of the elements, or to fix…
Share the Wealth
It is the duty of every man to endeavour that something may be added by his industry to the hereditary aggregate of knowledge and happiness. To add much can indeed be the lot of few,…