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All In Your Mind
450. Foresight; Planning; Retirement;
Youth
"The first years of man must make provision for the last. He
that never thinks never can be wise. Perpetual levity must end
in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits
for an hour, will make life short and miserable. Let us consider
that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when
the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight
dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but the esteem
of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore,
stop while to stop is in our power: let us live as men who are
some time to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful
of all evils not to count their past years by follies, and to be
reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the
maladies which riot has produced."
Johnson: Rasselas [Rasselas]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
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1,306. Foresight; Futurity
"It is not easy for a man of tender and scrupulous goodness to
overlook the immediate effect of his own actions, by turning his
eyes upon remoter consequences, and to do that which must give
present pain, for the sake of obviating evil yet unfelt, or
securing advantage in time to come. What is distant is in itself
obscure, and, when we have no wish to see it, easily escapes our
notice, or takes such a form as desire or imagination bestows
upon it."
Johnson: Rambler #160 (September 28, 1751)
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