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Virtue and Vice
Stoicism
593. Adversity; Diligence; Equanimity;
Misfortune; Patience; Perseverance
"Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished
from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may
lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the
necessities of nature, are calls to labour and diligence. When
we feel any pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we
can only obey the will of Heaven by languishing under it, any
more than when we perceive the pain of thirst, we are to imagine
that water is prohibited."
Johnson: Rambler #32 (July 7, 1750)
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595. Equanimity
"It seems to me reasonable to enjoy blessings with confidence as
well as to resign them with submission, and to hope for the
continuance of good which we possess without insolence or
voluptuousness, as for the restitution of that which we lose
without despondency or murmurs."
Johnson: Rambler #32 (July 7, 1750)
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1,119. Equanimity; Peevishness
"He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the
course of his life to be interrupted by fortuitous inadvertencies
or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind,
and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitute the
chief praise of a wise man."
Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751)
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1,120. Equanimity; Life; Moderation;
Myopia; Perspective
"The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and
the least; some surpass our power by their magnitude, and some
escape our notice by their number and their frequency. But the
indispensable business of life will afford sufficient exercise to
every human understanding; and such is the limitation of the
human powers that, by attention to trifles, we must let things of
importance pass unobserved; when we examine a mite with a glass,
we see nothing but a mite."
Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751)
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1,244. Equanimity
"By suffering willingly what we cannot avoid, we secure ourselves
from vain and immoderate disquiet; we preserve for better
purposes that strength which would be unprofitably wasted in wild
efforts of desperation, and maintain that circumspection which
may enable us to seize every support and improve every
alleviation. This calmness will be more easily obtained, as the
attention is more powerfully withdrawn from the contemplation of
unmingled unabated evil, and diverted to those accidental
benefits which prudence may confer on every state."
Johnson: Rambler #150 (August 24, 1751)
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