71. Choice; Life; Uncertainty
"Life is not long, and too much of it
should not be spent in idle
deliberation how it shall be spent: deliberation, which those
who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must,
after long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one
future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires
faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us."
Boswell: Life
Link
423. America/Americans; Choice;
Representation
"As man can be in but one place, at once, he cannot have the
advantages of multiplied residence. He that will enjoy the
brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade. He
who goes voluntarily to America, cannot complain of losing what
he leaves in Europe. He, perhaps, had a right to vote for a
knight or burgess; by crossing the Atlantick, he has not
nullified his right; but he has made its exertion no longer
possible. By his own choice he has left a country, where he had
a vote and little property, for another, where he has great
property, but no vote."
Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Link
448. Choice
"...Whatever be the general infelicity of man, one condition is
more happy than another, and wisdom surely directs us to take the
least evil in the choice of life."
"The causes of good and evil," answered Imlac, "are so various
and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversified
by various relations, and so much subject to accidents which
cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his condition upon
incontestible reasons of preference must live and die inquiring
and deliberating."
Johnson: Rasselas
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
471. Choice
"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by
too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance
to reach either. This is often the fate of long consideration;
he does nothing who endeavors to do more than is allowed to
humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure.
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his
scent with the flowers of spring: no man can, at the same time,
fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile."
Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
485. Choice; Life
"Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of
motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
560. Choice; Perseverance
Of 'Polyphilus,' a dilettante: "I have found him, within this last half year, deciphering the Chinese language, making a farce, collecting a vocabulary of the obsolete terms of the English law, writing an inquiry concerning the ancient Corinthian brass, and forming a new scheme of the variations of the needle. [Compass]
Thus is the powerful genius, which might have extended the
sphere of any science, or benefited the world in any profession,
dissipated in a boundless variety, without profit to others or to
himself. He makes sudden irruptions into the regions of
knowledge, and sees all obstacles give way before him; but he
never stays long enough to complete his conquest, to establish
laws, or bring away the spoils.
Johnson: Rambler #19 (May 22, 1750)
Link
572. Choice; Self-Confidence
"...if we make the praise or blame of others the rule of our
conduct, we shall be distracted by a boundless variety of
irreconcilable judgments, be held in perpetual suspense between
contrary impulses, and consult forever without
determination."
Johnson: Rambler #23 (June 5, 1750)
Link
607. Choice; Memory; Volition
"It is ... the faculty of remembrance which may be said to place
us in the class of moral agents. If we were to act only in
consequence of some immediate impulse, and receive no direction
from internal motives of choice, we should be pushed forward by
an invincible fatality, without power or reason for the most part
to prefer one thing to another, because we could make no
comparison but of objects which might both happen to be
present."
Johnson: Rambler #41 (August 7, 1750)
Link
610. Choice
"The great consideration which ought to influence us in the use
of the present moment is to arise from the effect which, as well
or ill applied, it must have upon the time to come; for though
its actual existence be inconceivably short, yet its effects are
unlimited; and there is not the smallest point of time but may
extend its consequences, either to our hurt or our advantage,
through all eternity, and give us reason to remember it for ever,
with anguish or exaltation."
Johnson: Rambler #41 (August 7, 1750)
Link
643. Choice; Humanity; Vanity
"Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the
imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always
in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it
well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content
ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that
waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his
life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless
intentions and barren zeal.""
Johnson: Idler #4 (May 6, 1758)
Link
680. Choice; Volition
"A very small part of the year is spent by choice."
Johnson: Idler #14 (July 15, 1758)
Link
699. Choice
"The good and ill of different modes of life are sometimes so
equally opposed that perhaps no man ever yet made his choice
between them upon a full conviction and adequate knowledge; and
therefore fluctuation of will is not more wonderful, when they
are proposed to the election, than oscillations of a beam charged
with equal weights. The mind no sooner imagines itself
determined by some prevalent advantage than some convenience of
equal weight is discovered on the other side, and the resolutions
which are suggested by the nicest examination are often repented
as soon as they are taken."
Johnson: Rambler #63 (October 23, 1750)
Link
700. Career Choice; Choice
"Inconstancy, however dignified by its
motives, is always to be
avoided, because life allows us but a small time for inquiry and
experiment, and he that steadily endeavours for excellence, in
whatever employment, will more benefit mankind than he that
hesitates in choosing his part till he is called to the
performance."
Johnson: Rambler #63 (October 23, 1750)
Link
701. Choice
"The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path
will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always
changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in
looking for smoother ground and shorter passages."
Johnson: Rambler #63 (October 23, 1750)
Link
781. Choice; Virtue
"It seems certain, that either a man must believe that virtue
will make him happy, and resolve therefore to be virtuous, or
think that he may be happy without virtue, and therefore cast off
all care but for his present interest. It seems impossible that
conviction should be on one side, and practice on the other; and
that he who has seen the right way should voluntarily shut his
eyes, that he may quit it with more tranquility. Yet all these
absurdities are every hour to be found..."
Johnson: Rambler #70 (November 17, 1750)
Link
832. Astrology; Choice; Influence
"But to the particular species of excellence men are directed,
not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the
first book which they read, some early conversation which they
heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation."
Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets)
Link
939. Choice; Diversion; Exercise;
Hunting
"The necessity of action is not only demonstrable from the fabric
of the body, but evident from observation of the universal
practice of mankind, who for the preservation of health in those
whose rank or wealth exempts them from the necessity of lucrative
labour, have invented sports and diversions, though not of equal
use to the world with manual trades, yet of equal fatigue to
those who practice them, and differing only from the drudgery of
the husbandman or manufacturer, as they are acts of choice, and
therefore performed without the painful sense of compulsion. The
huntsman rises early, pursues his game through all the dangers
and obstructions of the chase, swims rivers, and scales
precipices, till he returns home no less harassed than the
soldier, and has perhaps sometimes incurred as great hazard or
wounds or death: yet he has no motive to incite his ardour; he
is neither subject to the commands of a general, nor dreads any
penalties for neglect and disobedience; he has neither profit
nor honour to expect from his perils and his conquests; but
toils without the hope of mural or civic garlands, and must
content himself with the praise of his tenants and
companions."
Johnson: Rambler #85 (January 8, 1751)
Link
1,144. Choice
"It is, indeed, not very difficult to bear that condition to
which we are not condemned by necessity, but induced by
observation and choice."
Johnson: Rambler #119 (May 7, 1751)
Link
1,182. Choice; Focus
"There is no temper more unpropitious to interest than desultory
application and unlimited inquiry, by which the desires are held
in a perpetual equipoise, and the mind fluctuates between
different purposes without determination."
Johnson: Rambler #132 (June 22, 1751)
Link
1,192. Choice; Focus
"He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will
frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has
precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail,
and harass himself without advancing."
Johnson: Rambler #134 (June 29, 1751)
Link
1,193. Choice
"He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he
watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his
attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment
of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some
accident intercepts his journey."
Johnson: Rambler #134 (June 29, 1751)
Link
1,254. Career Choice; Choice
"To deliberate upon a choice which
custom and honour forbid to be
retracted is certainly reasonable, yet to loose the attention
equally to the advantages and inconveniences of every employment
is not without danger; new motives are every moment operating on
every side; and the mechanics have long ago discovered, that
contrariety of equal attractions is equivalent to rest."
Johnson: Rambler #153 (September 3, 1751)
Link
1,391. Choice
"Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable
boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a
distance from each other that no art or power can bring them
together. This great law it is the business of every rational
being to understand, that life may not pass away in an
attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite
qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being
must always keep asunder."
Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751)
Link
1,392. Choice
"Of two objects tempting at a distance on contrary sides, it is
impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by
long deliberation and dilatory projects they may be both lost,
but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to
compare them, and when we have determined the preference, to
withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which
reason directs us to reject."
Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751)
Link
1,402. Action/Inaction; Choice
"Great numbers who quarrel with their condition have wanted not
the power but the will to obtain a better state. They have never
contemplated the difference between good and evil sufficiently to
quicken aversion or invigorate desire; they have indulged a
drowsy thoughtlessness or giddy lenity; have committed the
balance of choice to the management of caprice; and when they
have long accustomed themselves to receive all that chance
offered them, without examination, lament at last that they find
themselves deceived."
Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751)
Link
1,421. Choice
"No course of life is so prescribed and limited, but that many
actions must result from arbitrary election. Every one must form
the general plan of his conduct by his own reflections; he must
resolve whether he will endeavour at riches or at content;
whether he will exercise private or public virtues; whether he
will labour for the general benefit of mankind, or contract his
beneficence to his family and dependents."
Johnson: Rambler #184 (December 21, 1751)
Link
1,736. Choice; Volition
"Choice is more often determined by accident than by reason."
Johnson: Idler #55 (May 5, 1759)
Link
1,858. Choice
"The choice which has been long delayed is commonly made at last
with great caution."
Johnson: Idler #100 (March 15, 1760); from a fictional
correspondent, Tim Warner.
Link
