Mind Quotes - Page 24

• Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle; but the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Strong, Struggle, Passion

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1857). “Prose Works”, p.152

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• To be infatuated with the power of one's own intellect is an accident which seldom happens but to those who are remarkable for the want of intellectual power. Whenever Nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Self, Intellectual, Coats

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1886). “Outre-mer and Drift-wood”

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• Simplicity is the character of the spring of life, costliness becomes its autumn; but a neatness and purity, like that of the snow-drop or lily of the valley, is the peculiar fascination of beauty, to which it lends enchantment, and gives what amiability is to the mind.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Spring, Character, Autumn

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• At length weariness succeeds to labor, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments without any desire of new conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative; the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lying, Doubt, Age

  Samuel Johnson (2003). “Selected Essays”, p.380, Penguin UK

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• When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.

  Samuel Johnson

  Death, Kindness, Wish

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.45

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• The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind; and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hands, Example, Acquisition

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• We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time they are not remembered; he may, therefore, justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Memories, Fall, Errors

  Samuel Johnson (1851). “The beauties of Johnson: choice selections from his works”, p.27

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• None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Exercise, Design

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.217

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• Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.

  Samuel Johnson

  Body, Stamina

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• Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Giving, Humans

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.530

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• A minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendor which dazzles the imagination. Whatsoever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill; all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Luxury, Imagination

  Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd”

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• More is learned in a public than in a private school, from emulation. There is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one center.

  Samuel Johnson

  School, Radiation, Emulation

  James Boswell, Alexander Napier, Richard Duppa, Robina Napier, Samuel Johnson (1884). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D. Together with the journal of a tour to the Hebrides: James Boswell”

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• The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed everything generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Retirement, Solitude, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.22

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• Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Sorrow, Desire

  Samuel Johnson (1791). “The Rambler”, p.270

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• Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

  Samuel Johnson

  Style, Benefits, Unexpected

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.380, Univ of California Press

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• A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Talking, Delight

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• The necessary connexion of representatives with taxes, seems to have sunk deep into many of those minds, that admit sounds, without their meaning.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sound, Taxation, Taxes

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1840). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Lives of the poets”, p.432

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• Presumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disease, Obstinate, Presumption

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.154

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• Never mind the use--do it!

  Samuel Johnson

  Use, Utility

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.78

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• The mind of a wise man is the safest custody of secrets; cheerfulness is the key to friendship; patience and forbearance will conceal many defects.

  Bill Vaughan

  Wise, Character, Men

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• If any writer thinks the world is full of middle class people of nice sensibilities, then he is out of his mind.

  Bill Vaughan

  Nice, Thinking, Class

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• A cancer is not only a physical disease, it is a state of mind.

  Bill Vaughan

  Cancer, Disease, States

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• Optimism, unaccompanied by personal effort, is merely a state of mind and not fruitful.

  Bill Vaughan

  Optimism, Effort, Enthusiasm

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• The eyes are the amulets of the mind.

  Bill Vaughan

  Eye, Amulets

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• We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the misfortunes of the mind than for those of the body, when they are such as he cannot help; were this thoroughly considered we should no more laugh at a man for having his brains cracked than for having his head broke.

  Alexander Pope

  Men, Laughing, Humanity

  Alexander Pope (1812). “The works of Alexander Pope. With a selection of explanatory notes, and the account of his life by dr. Johnson”, p.230

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