684. Identification; Sympathy
"All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is
produced by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event
however fictitious, or approximates it however remote, by placing
us, for a time, in the condition of him whose fortune we
contemplate; so that we feel, while the decision lasts, whatever
motions would be excited by the same good or evil happening to
ourselves."
Johnson: Rambler #60 (October 13, 1750)
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1,018. Identification; Praise; Pride
In Work
"Every man loves merit of the same kind with his own, when it is
not likely to hinder his advancement or his reputation; for he
not only best understands the worth of those qualities which he
labours to cultivate, or the usefulness of the art which he
practises with success, but always feels a reflected pleasure
from the praises which, though given to another, belong equally
to himself."
Johnson: Rambler #99 (February 26, 1751)
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1,049. Identification; Reading
"The plan of Paradise Lost has this inconvenience, that it
comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man and
woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or
woman can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he
can be engaged, beholds no condition in which he can by any
effort of imagination place himself; he has, therefore, little
natural curiosity or sympathy."
Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
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1,173. Apathy; Humanity; Identification;
Life
"Every class of society has its cant of lamentation, which is
understood or regarded by none but themselves; and every part of
life has its uneasiness, which those who do not feel them will
not commiserate. An event which spreads distraction over half
the commercial world, assembles the trading companies in councils
and committees, and shakes the nerves of a thousand stockjobbers,
is read by the landlord and the farmer with frigid
indifference."
Johnson: Rambler #128 (June 8, 1751)
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