Melancholy Quotes
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497. Guilt Complexes; Melancholy; Superstitions
"No disease of the imagination ... is so difficult of cure as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain; but when melancholic notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this reason the superstitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy almost always superstitious."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas.
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583. Fear; Melancholy; Over-Anticipation
"The concern of things to come that is so justly censured is not the result of those general reflections on the variableness of fortune, the uncertainty of life, and the universal insecurity of all human acquisitions, which must always be suggested by the view of the world; but such a desponding anticipation of misfortune as fixes the mind upon scenes of gloom and melancholy, and makes fear predominate every imagination."
Johnson: Rambler #29 (June 26, 1750)
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