116. Admiration; Friendship; Judgment;
Love
I regretted that I had lost much of my disposition to admire,
which people generally do as they advance in life.
Johnson: "Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is
better than admiration, --judgement, to estimate things at their
true value." I still insisted that admiration was more pleasing
than judgement, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The
feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled
with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Johnson: "No, Sir, admiration and love are like being
intoxicated with champagne; judgement and friendship like being
enlivened."
Boswell: Life
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744. Judgment
"Inquiries into the heart are not for man."
Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)
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782. Judgment
"Nothing ... is more unjust than to judge a man by too short an
acquaintance and too slight inspection; for it often happens,
that in the loose, and thoughtless, and dissipated, there is a
secret radical worth which may shoot out by proper cultivation;
that the spark of Heaven, though dimmed and obstructed, is yet
not extinguished, but may by the breath of counsel and
exhortation be kindled into flame."
Johnson: Rambler #70 (November 17, 1750)
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783. Judgment
"To imagine that every one who is not completely good is
irrevocably abandoned is to suppose that all are capable of the
same degree of excellence; it is indeed to exact from all that
perfection which none ever can attain."
Johnson: Rambler #70 (November 17, 1750)
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784. Judgment; Virtue
"Since the purest virtue is consistent with some vice, and the
virtue of the greatest number with almost an equal proportion of
contrary qualities, let none too hastily conclude that all
goodness is lost, though it may for a time be clouded and
overwhelmed; for most minds are the slaves of external
circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould
them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be
caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against
them."
Johnson: Rambler #70 (November 17, 1750)
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