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Families
456. Families
"In families, where there is or is not
poverty, there is commonly
discord: if a kingdom be ... a great family, a family likewise
is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to
revolutions. An unpracticed observer expects the love of parents
and children to be constant and equal; but this kindness seldom
continues beyond the years of infancy; in a short time the
children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allayed by
reproaches, and gratitude debased by envy."
Johnson: Rasselas [the princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
457. Fallibility; Families
"How can children credit the assertions of parents, which their
own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner
as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their
lives."
Johnson: Rasselas [the princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
458. Families; Generation Gap
"Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims
by the credit of their lives. The old man trusts wholly to slow
contrivance and gradual progression: the youth expects to force
his way by genius, vigor, and precipitance. The old man pays
regard to riches, and the youth reverences virtue. The old man
defies prudence: the youth commits himself to magnanimity and
chance. The young man, who intends no ill, believes that none is
intended, and therefore acts with openness and candor; but his
father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to
suspect, and too often allured to practice it. Age looks with
anger upon the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the
scrupulosity of age. Thus parents and children, for the greatest
part, live on to love less and less: and if those whom nature
has thus closely united are the torments of each other, where
shall we look for tenderness and consolation?"
Johnson: Rasselas [the princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
459. Families; Respect; Virtue
"Domestic discord ... is not inevitably and fatally necessary;
but yet it is not easy to avoid. We seldom see that a whole
family is virtuous; the good and evil cannot well agree; and
the evil can yet less agree with one another; even the virtuous
fall sometimes to variance, when their virtues are of different
kinds and tending to extremes. In general those parents have
most reverence that most deserve it: for he that lives well
cannot be despised."
Johnson: Rasselas [the princess Nekayah]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
Link
