593. Adversity; Diligence; Equanimity;
Misfortune; Patience; Perseverance
"Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished
from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may
lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the
necessities of nature, are calls to labour and diligence. When
we feel any pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we
can only obey the will of Heaven by languishing under it, any
more than when we perceive the pain of thirst, we are to imagine
that water is prohibited."
Johnson: Rambler #32 (July 7, 1750)
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1,635.
Adversity; Humanity
"It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified.
Prosperity, allayed and imperfect as it is, has power to
intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present
scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who
enjoys affluence and honours forget the hand by which they
were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise, than by
affliction, awakened to a sense of our own imbecility, or taught
to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety
or to quiet; and how justly we may ascribe to the
superintendence of a higher Power, those blessings which in
the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments
of our policy or courage."
Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753)
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1,636. Adversity; Futurity
"Nothing confers so much ability to resist the temptations that
perpetually surround us, as an habitual consideration of the
shortness of life, and the uncertainty of those pleasures that
solicit our pursuit; and this consideration can be inculcated
only by affliction. 'O Death! how bitter is the remembrance of
thee, to a man that lives at ease in his possessions!' If our
present state were one continued succession of delights, or one
uniform flow of calmness and tranquility, we should never
willingly think upon its end; death would then surely
surprise us as 'a thief in the night;' and our task of duty
would remain unfinished, till 'the night came when no man can
work.'"
Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753)
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