Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past. β¨ James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). Boswell's Life of Johnson: including Boswell's Journal of a tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's diary of A journey into North Wales, p.72
More Author Quotes
- How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no β¦ βΆ
- I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. β¨ Letter to Lord Chesterfield, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. β¦ βΆ
- Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
- It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition, because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the β¦ βΆ
- Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct h β¦ βΆ
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