504. Advice; Criticism; Vanity
"Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some
superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have
made a deeper search, or wider survey than others, and detected
faults and follies which escape vulgar observation."
Johnson: Rambler #2 (March 24, 1750)
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602. Advice; Friendship; Honesty
"It is decreed by Providence, that nothing truly valuable shall
be obtained in our present state, but with difficulty and danger.
He that hopes for that advantage which is to be gained from
unrestrained communication must sometimes hazard, by unpleasing
truths, that friendship which he aspires to merit.
The chief
rule to observed in the exercise of this dangerous office, is to
preserve it pure from all mixture of interest or vanity; to
forbear admonition or reproof, when our consciences tell us that
they are incited, not by the hopes of reforming faults, but the
desire of showing our discrenment, or gratifying our pride by the
mortification of another."
Johnson: Rambler #40 (August 4, 1750)
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603. Advice; Friendship; Honesty
"It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will
find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge of his own
failing, or the most zealous benevolence reconcile him to that
judgment by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only
the happiness of him whom he reproves will always have either the
satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds,
he benefits his friend; and if he fails, he has at least the
consciousness that he suffers for only doing well."
Johnson: Rambler #40 (August 4, 1750)
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921. Advice
"Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
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962. Advice
"Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so
little effect, as good advice."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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963. Advice; Goodness; Happiness;
Life
"Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man
could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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964. Advice
"If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office
of directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it
will not be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or
affectionate, are frequently useless. For what is the advice
that is commonly given? A few general maxims, enforced with
vehemence, and inculcated with importunity, but failing for want
of particular reference and immediate application."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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965. Advice
"It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of
another as is necessary to make instruction useful. We are
sometimes not ourselves conscious of the original motives of our
actions; and when we know them, our first care is to hide them
from the sight of others, and often from those most diligently,
whose superiority either of power or understanding may entitle
them to inspect our lives; it is, therefore, very probable, that
he who endeavours to cure our intellectual maladies, mistakes
their cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because
he knows not which of the passions or desires is vitiated."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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966. Advice; Posturing; Vanity
"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 his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous
is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when
nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or
faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as
to linger on the ground."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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967. Advice; Vanity
"Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we,
for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very
accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that
another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and
assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would
contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather
than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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968. Advice; Vanity
"There are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who
will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own
beneficence."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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1,268. Advice; Vanity
"Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected
regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice,
but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to
ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred,
not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that
superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared
to detect what we desired to conceal."
Johnson: Rambler #155 (September 10, 1751)
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1,269. Advice; Temptation;
Vanity
"If those who follow the call of their desires, without inquiry
whither they are going, had deviated ignorantly from the paths of
wisdom, and were rushing upon dangers unforeseen, they would
readily listen to information that recalls them from their
errors, and catch the first alarm by which destruction or infamy
is denounced. Few that wander in the wrong way mistake it for
the right; they only find it more smooth and flowery, and indulge
their own choice rather than approve it: therefore few are
persuaded to quit it by admonition or reproof, since it impresses
no new conviction, nor confers any action or resistance. He that
is gravely informed how soon profusion will annihilate his
fortune, hears with little advantage what he knew before, and
catches at the next occasion of expense, because advice has no
force to suppress his vanity. He that is told how certainly
intemperance will hurry him to the grave runs with his usual
speed to a new course of luxury, because his reason is not
invigorated, nor his appetite weakened."
Johnson: Rambler #155 (September 10, 1751)
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1,385. Advice
"No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it
received with implicit veneration."
Johnson: Rambler #176 (November 23, 1751)
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1,549. Advice
"That there is something in advice very useful and salutary,
seems to be equally confessed on all hands; since even those that
reject it, allow for the most part that rejection to be wrong,
but charge the fault upon the unskilful manner in which it is
given; they admit the efficacy of the medicine, but abhor the
nauseousness of the vehicle."
Johnson: Adventurer #74 (July 21, 1753)
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1,550. Advice; Youth
"The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and,
since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a
patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those
who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a
patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present
age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that
young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel
is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own
perfections."
Johnson: Adventurer #74 (July 21, 1753)
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