Quotes on Complaining
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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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