168. Disease; Complaining
Though Mr. Johnson was commonly affected even to agony at the
thoughts of a friend's dying, he
troubled himself very little
with the complaints they might make to him of ill health. "Dear
Doctor (said he one day to a common acquaintance, who lamented
the tender state of his inside), do not be like the
spider, man; and spin conversation thus incessantly out thy own
bowels."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
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650. Complaining
"It is not sufficiently considered how much he assumes who dares
to claim the privilege of complaining; for as every man has, in
his own opinion, a full share of the miseries of life, he is
inclined to consider all clamorous uneasiness as a proof of
impatience rather than of affliction, and to ask, what merit has
this man to show, by which he has acquired a right to repine at
the distributions of nature? Or, why does he imagine that
exemptions should be granted him from the general condition of
man? We find ourselves excited rather to captiousness than pity,
and, instead of being in hast to sooth his complaints by sympathy
and tenderness, we inquire whether the pain be proportionate to
the lamentation; and whether, supposing the affliction real, it
is not the effect of vice and folly, rather than calamity?"
Johnson: Rambler #50 (September 8, 1750)
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683. Friendship; Complaining
"To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain,
is one of the duties of friendship."
Johnson: Rambler #59 (October 9, 1750)
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788. Complaining
"Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of
lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells
in his moments of dejection."
Johnson: Idler #19 (August 19, 1758)
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812. Complaining
"Complaint quickly tires, however elegant or however just."
Johnson: Rambler #73 (November 27, 1750)
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1,401. Complaining; Life; Locus of
Control
"Many complaints are made of the misery of life; and indeed it
must be confessed that we are subject to calamities by which the
good and bad, the diligent and slothful, the vigilant and
heedless are equally afflicted. But surely, though some
indulgence may be allowed to groans extorted by inevitable
misery, no man has a right to repine at evils which, against
warning, against experience, he deliberately and leisurely brings
upon his own head; or to consider himself as debarred from
happiness by such obstacles as resolution may break, or dexterity
may put aside."
Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751)
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