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All In Your Mind
The Whole Truth
494. Diversion; Delusion; Solitude
"He who has nothing external that can divert him must find
pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he
is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expiates in
boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that
which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his
desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride
unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene,
unites all pleasures in all combination, and riots in delights
which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot
bestow.
"In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite
conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of
fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time
despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false
opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of
rapture or of anguish."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
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518. Delusion; Temptation
"When a man finds himself led, though by a train of honest
sentiments, to wish for that which he has no right, he should
start back as from a pitfall covered with flowers. He that
fancies he should benefit the public more in a great station than
the man that fills it will in time imagine it an act of virtue to
supplant him; and as opposition readily kindles into hatred, his
eagerness to do that good, to which he is not called, will betray
him to crimes, which in his original scheme were never
proposed."
Johnson: Rambler #8 (April 14, 1750)
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729. Appearances; Delusion;
Diversion
"To every place of entertainment we go with expectation and
desire of being pleased; we meet others who are brought by the
same motives; no one will be the first to own the
disappointment; one face reflects the smile of another, till
each believes the rest delighted, and endeavours to catch and
transmit the circulating rapture. In time, all are deceived by
the cheat to which all contribute. The fiction of happiness is
propagated by every tongue, and confirmed by every look, till at
last all profess the joy which they do not feel, consent to yield
to the general delusion, and, when the voluntary dream is at an
end, lament that bliss is of so short a duration."
Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758)
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977. Attention; Complacency;
Delusion
"There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think
than to have learned the art of regaling his mind with ... airy
gratifications. Other vices or follies are restrained by fear,
reformed by admonition, or rejected by the conviction which the
comparison of our conduct with that of others may in time
produce. But this invisible riot of the mind, this secret
prodigality of being, is secure from detection and fearless of
reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartments, shuts out the
cares and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his
own fancy; new worlds rise up before him, one image is followed
by another, and a long succession of delights dances around him.
He is at last called back to life by nature or by custom; and
enters peevish into society, because he cannot model it to his
own will."
Johnson: Rambler #89 (January 22, 1751)
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1,134. Delusion
"Many have no happier moments than those they pass in
solitude, abandoned to their own imagination, which sometimes
puts sceptres in their hands or mitres on their heads, shifts the
scene of pleasure with endless variety, bids all the forms of
beauty sparkle before them with every change of visionary luxury.
"It is easy in these semi-slumbers to collect all the
possibilities of happiness, to alter the course of the sun, to
bring back the past, and anticipate the future, to unite all the
beauties of all seasons, and all the blessings of all climates,
to receive and bestow felicity, and forget that misery is the lot
of man. All this is a voluntary dream, a temporary recessions
from the realities of life to airy fictions; and habitual
subjection of reason to fancy.
"Others are afraid to be alone, and amuse themselves by a
perpetual succession of companions: but the difference is not
great; in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in
company we agree to dream in concert. The end sought in both is
forgetfulness of ourselves."
Johnson: Idler #32 (November 25, 1752)
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1,410. Delusion; Hope
"There are multitudes whose life is nothing but a continuous
lottery; who are always within a few months of plenty and
happiness, and how often soever they are mocked with blanks,
expect a prize from the next adventure."
Johnson: Rambler #182 (December 14, 1751)
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1,443. Delusion; Flattery;
Vanity
"Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit
prejudices in their own favour, which an artful flatterer may
gradually strengthen, till wishes for a particular qualification
are improved to hopes of attainment, and hopes of attainment to
belief of possession."
Johnson: Rambler #189 (January 7, 1752)
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1,540. Delusion; Mortality
Tully has long ago observed, that no man, however weakened by
long life, is so conscious of his own decrepitude, as not to
imagine that he may yet hold his station in the world for another
year.
Of the truth of this remark every day furnishes new
confirmation: there is no time of life, in which men for the most
part seem less to expect the stroke of death, than when every
other eye sees it impending; or are more busy in providing for
another year, than when it is plain to all but themselves, that
at another year they cannot arrive.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,541. Delusion
Every man amuses himself with projects which he knows to be
improbable, and which, therefore, he resolves to pursue without
daring to examine them.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,542. Delusion
Whatever any man ardently desires, he very readily believes that
he shall some time attain: he whose intemperance has overwhelmed
him with diseases, while he languishes in the spring, expects
vigour and recovery from the summer sun; and while he melts away
in the summer, transfers his hopes to the frosts of winter: he
that gazes upon elegance or pleasure, which want of money hinders
him from imitating or partaking, comforts himself that the time
of distress will soon be at an end, and that every day brings him
nearer to a state of happiness; though he knows that it has
passed not only without acquisition or advantage, but perhaps
without endeavours after it, in the formation of schemes that
cannot be executed, and in the contemplation of prospects which
cannot be approached.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,543. Delusion
Every man thinks the day coming, in which he shall be gratified
with all his wishes, in which he shall leave all those
competitors behind, who are now rejoicing like himself in the
expectation of victory; the day is always coming to the servile
in which they shall be powerful, to the obscure in which they
shall be eminent, and to the deformed in which they shall be
beautiful.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,546. Delusions
When we delight to brood in secret over future happiness, and
silently to employ our meditations upon schemes of which we are
conscious that the bare mention would expose us to derision and
contempt; we should then remember, that we are cheating ourselves
by voluntary delusions; and giving up to the unreal mockeries of
fancy, those hours in which solid advantages might be attained by
sober thought and rational assiduity.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,547. Delusions; Hope
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness, that in many
situations life could scarcely be supported, if hope were not
allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from
futurity; and reanimate the languor of dejection to new efforts,
by pointing to distant regions of felicity, which yet no
resolution or perseverance shall ever reach.
But these, like all other cordials, though they may invigorate
in a small quantity, intoxicate in a greater; these pleasures,
like the rest, are lawful only in certain circumstances, and to
certain degrees; they may be useful in a due subserviency to
nobler purposes, but become dangerous and destructive, when once
they gain the ascendant in the heart: to sooth the mind to
tranquillity by hope, even when that hope is likely to deceive
us, may be sometimes useful; but to lull our faculties in a
lethargy, is poor and despicable.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,548. Delusions; Hope
To indulge hope beyond the warrant of reason, is the failure
alike of mean and elevated understandings; but its foundation and
its effects are totally different: the man of high courage and
great abilities, is apt to place too much confidence in himself,
and to expect from a vigorous exertion of his powers more than
spirit or diligence can attain; between him and his wish he sees
obstacles indeed, but he expects to overleap or break them; his
mistaken ardour hurries him forward; and though perhaps he misses
his end, he nevertheless obtains some collateral good, and
performs something useful to mankind and honourable to
himself.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,631. Delusion; Life;
Satisfaction
"The world, in its best state, is nothing more than a larger
assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they
do not feel, employing every art and contrivance to embellish
life, and to hide their real condition from the eyes of one
another."
Johnson: Adventurer #120 (December 29, 1753)
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1,784. Delusion; Truth
"However we may labour for our own deception, truth, though
unwelcome, will sometimes intrude upon the mind."
Johnson: Idler #80 (October 27, 1759)
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