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All In Your Mind
86. Familiarity
"Mankind have a strong attachment to the habitations to which
they have been accustomed. You see the inhabitants of Norway do
not with one consent quit it, and go to some part of America,
where there is a mild climate, and where they may have the same
produce from land, with the tenth part of the labour. No, Sir;
their affection for their old dwellings, and the terrour of a
general change, keep them at home. Thus, we see many of the
finest spots in the world thinly inhabited, and many rugged spots
well inhabited."
Boswell: Life
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871. Familiarity
"Corporal sensation is known to depend so much upon novelty that
custom takes away from many things their power of giving pleasure
or pain. Thus a new dress becomes easy by wearing it, and the
palate is reconciled by degrees to dishes which at first
disgusted it."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
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872. Familiarity
"The most important events, when they become familiar, are no
longer considered with wonder or solicitude; and that which at
first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any
other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository
of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory,
overlooked and neglected."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
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875. Death; Mourning; Familiarity
"We, to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions
of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations
of men pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of
sorrow and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look upon
funeral pomp as a common spectacle, in which we have no concern,
and turn away from it to trifles and amusements, without
dejection of look or inquietude of heart."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
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1,051. Familiarity; Novelty
On Paradise Lost: "We all, indeed, feel the effects of
Adam's disobedience; we all sin like Adam, and like him must all
bewail our offences; we have restless and insidious enemies in
the fallen angels, and in the blessed spirits we have guardians
and friends; in the Redemption of mankind we hope to be
included: in the description of heaven and hell we are surely
interested, as we are all to reside hereafter either in the
regions of horrour or of bliss.
"But these truths are too important to be new: they have been
taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary
thoughts and familiar conversation, and are habitually interwoven
with the whole texture of life. Being therefore not new they
raise no unaccustomed emotion in the mind: what we knew before
we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise."
Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
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