Remarks by Samuel Johnson | V2Melody Quotations

“Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue.”

Seeing surviving shame as evidence that moral recovery remains possible · Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Hope
Truth

“He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.”

Recognising how immediate deprivation narrows concern to present survival · Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

Society
Time

“To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power.”

Replacing impossible universal rescue with practical acts of relief · Rambler No. 107

“No, Sir; to act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.”

Offering a sceptical account of supposedly pure altruism · Boswell, Life of Johnson

“Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with every thing that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.”

Showing how abundance creates new wants beyond basic need · Idler No. 30

“The desires of man increase with his acquisitions; every step which he advances brings something within his view, which he did not see before, and which, as soon as he sees it, he begins to want.”

Describing desire as something that expands with possession · Idler No. 30

Desire
Time

“The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess.”

Tracing social conflict to competition for scarce status and rewards · Rambler No. 183

“We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us.”

Observing how comparison with near rivals can dominate ideas of happiness · Rambler No. 164

Fame
Joy

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.”

Defining wealth partly through the scale of desire rather than possession alone · Rambler No. 163

Joy
Truth

“No man, who desires publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little importance.”

Arguing against escalating small disputes into destructive public conflict · The Patriot

Truth
War

“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

Exposing the hypocrisy of demanding liberty while enslaving others · Taxation No Tyranny

“A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.”

Separating political opposition from genuine public devotion · The Patriot

“He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace.”

Making restraint and public peace tests of genuine patriotism · The Patriot

“Fear is a passion which every man feels so frequently predominant in his own breast, that he is unwilling to hear it censured with great asperity.”

Treating fear as a universal human experience rather than a rare weakness · Rambler No. 126

“He that lives, must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of old age.”

Framing the burdens of age as the price of continued life · Letter to James Boswell, 1782

“I am afraid, that health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty.”

A clear-eyed reflection on how the meaning of health changes with age · Letter to James Boswell, 1782

“I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use.”

Valuing biography for practical insight into recognisable human lives · Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Memory
Truth

“If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shewn, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in any thing.”

Defending honest biography because human flaws make admirable lives more attainable · Boswell, Life of Johnson

Hope
Truth

“Characters should never be given by an historian, unless he knew the people whom he describes, or copies from those who knew them.”

Demanding first-hand knowledge or reliable testimony in biographical judgement · Boswell, Life of Johnson

Memory
Truth

“Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions.”

Warning against judging history solely by present assumptions · Lives of the Poets, Milton

Time
Truth

“No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them.”

Wryly observing how professional habits shape the way people see every subject · Lives of the Poets, Milton

“That it is every man's interest to be pleased will need little proof: that it is his interest to please others experience will inform him.”

Treating mutual agreeableness as a practical basis of social life · Rambler No. 112

“The truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself.”

Offering perspective on self-consciousness and the limits of other people's attention · Rambler No. 159

“Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud.”

Reminding readers that no success is wholly free from trouble · Lives of the Poets, Addison

Despair
Joy

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