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All In Your Mind
1,205. Awe; Effort; Intimidation;
Patience
"It is common for those who have never accustomed themselves to
the labour of inquiry, nor invigorated their confidence by
conquests over difficulty, to sleep in the gloomy quiescence of
astonishment, without any effort to animate inquiry or dispel
obscurity. What they cannot immediately conceive they consider
as too high to be reached, or too extensive to be comprehended;
they therefore content themselves with the gaze of folly, forbear
to attempt what they have no hopes of performing; and resign the
pleasure of rational contemplation to more pertinacious study or
more active faculties."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
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1,207. Awe; Fear; Intimidation
"Long calculations or complex diagrams affright the timorous and
unexperienced from a second view; but if we have skill
sufficient to analyze them into simple principles, it will be
discovered that our fear was groundless. Divide and
conquer is a principle equally just in science as in policy.
Complication is a species of confederacy, which, while it
continues united, bids defiance to the most active and vigorous
intellect; but of which every member is separately weak, and
which may, therefore, be quickly subdued if it can once be
broken."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
Link
1,209. Intimidation; Perseverance;
Vanity
"To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a
careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without
labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the
rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to
diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to
submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in
voluntary shackles."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
Link
1,216. Idleness; Intimidation
"Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and
intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible
which is only difficult."
Johnson: Boerhaave
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