Other related topics at: Value All In Your Mind 469. Perspective "To the mind, as to the eye, it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent, and various in their parts. Where we see or conceive the whole at once we readily note the discriminations and decide the preference; but of two systems, of which neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication, where is the wonder that, judging of the whole by parts, I am alternately affected by one and the other, as either presses on my memory or fancy? We differ from ourselves just as we differ from each other, when we see only parts of the question, as in the multifarious relations of politics and morality; but when we perceive the whole at once, as numerical computations, all agree in one judgement, and none ever varies his opinion." Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 1,028. Perspective "No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them." Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets) Link 1,033. History; Perspective "Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions." Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets) Link 1,120. Equanimity; Life; Moderation; Myopia; Perspective "The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and the least; some surpass our power by their magnitude, and some escape our notice by their number and their frequency. But the indispensable business of life will afford sufficient exercise to every human understanding; and such is the limitation of the human powers that, by attention to trifles, we must let things of importance pass unobserved; when we examine a mite with a glass, we see nothing but a mite." Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751) Link 1,125. Capital Punishment; Deterrence; Justice; Moderation; Perspective "To equal robbery with murder is to reduce murder to robbery, to confound in common minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when by the last act of cruelty no new danger is incurred and greater security may be obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?" Johnson: Rambler #114 (April 20, 1751) Link 1,140. Career Choice; Curiosity; Focus; Perspective "Even of those who have dedicated themselves to knowledge, the far greater part have confined their curiosity to a few objects, and have very little inclination to promote any fame but that of which their own studies entitle them to partake. The naturalist has no desire to know the opinions or conjectures of the philosopher; the botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard; the lawyer scarcely hears the name of a physician without contempt; and he that is growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle, wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace." Johnson: Rambler #118 (May 4, 1751) Link 1,314. Perspective; Safety "When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped." Johnson: Letter to Hester Thrale (July 14, 1770) Link 1,419. Perspective "What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of nature no man can properly call a river deep or a mountain high, without the knowledge of many mountains and many rivers; so in the productions of genius, nothing can be stiled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the same kind. Demonstration immediately displays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear from the flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must be estimated by their proportion to the general and collective ability of man, as it is discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Of the first building that was raised, it might be with certainty determined that it was round or square, but whether it was spacious or lofty must have been referred to time." Johnson: Preface to Shakespeare Link 1,452. Generation Gap; Perspective "This revolution of sentiments occasions a perpetual contest between the old and young. They who imagine themselves entitled to veneration by the prerogative of longer life, are inclined to treat the notions of those whose conduct they superintend with superciliousness and contempt, for want of considering that the future and the past have different appearances; that the disproportion will always be great between expectation and enjoyment, between new possession and satiety; that the truth of many maxims of age gives too little pleasure to be allowed till it is felt; and that the miseries of life would be increased beyond all human power of endurance if we were to enter the world with the same opinions as we carry from it." Johnson: Rambler #196 (February 1, 1752) Link 1,526. Perspective; Reading "Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible, and the expression which is now dubious formerly determinate." Johnson: Adventurer #58 (May 25, 1753) Link 1,580. Perspective "Where, then, is the wonder, that they who see only a small part should judge erroneously of the whole? or that they, who see different and dissimilar parts, should judge differently from each other?" Johnson: Adventurer #107 (November 13, 1753) Link 1,581. Perspective Whatever has various respects, must have various appearances of good and evil, beauty or deformity; thus, the gardener tears up as a weed, the plant which the physician gathers as a medicine; and "a general," says Sir Kenelm Digby, "will look with pleasure over a plain, as a fit place on which the fate of empires might be decided in battle, which the farmer will despise as bleak and barren, neither fruitful of pasturage, nor fit for tillage." Two men examining the same question proceed commonly like the physician and gardener in selecting herbs, or the farmer and hero looking on the plain; they bring minds impressed with different notions, and direct their enquiries to different ends; they form, therefore, contrary conclusions, and each wonders at the other's absurdity. Johnson: Adventurer #107 (November 13, 1753) Link 1,584. Perspective; Tolerance "It may likewise contribute to soften that resentment which pride naturally raises against opposition, if we consider, that he who differs from us, does not always contradict us; he has one view of an object, and we have another; each describes what he sees with equal fidelity, and each regulates his steps by his own eyes." Johnson: Adventurer #107 (November 13, 1753) Link 1,645. Perspective "As it is thus easy by a detail of minute circumstances to make everything little, so it is not difficult by an aggregation of effects to make every thing great." Johnson: Adventurer #128 (January 26, 1754) Link 1,646. Perspective "Greatness and littleness are terms merely comparative; and we err in our estimation of things, because we measure them by some wrong standard." Johnson: Adventurer #128 (January 26, 1754) Link 1,651. Criticism; Perspective "It has been formerly remarked by The Guardian, that the world punishes with too great severity the errours of those, who imagine that the ignorance of little things may be compensated by the knowledge of great; for so it is, that as more can detect petty failings than can distinguish or esteem great qualifications, and as mankind is in general more easily disposed to censure than to admiration, contempt is often incurred by slight mistakes, which real virtue or usefulness cannot counterbalance." Johnson: Adventurer #131 (February 5, 1754) Link 1,682. Perspective "We often look with indifference on the successive parts of that, which, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion." Johnson: Idler #38 (January 6, 1759) Link 1,725. Perspective; Potential "Great powers cannot be exerted but when great exigencies make them necessary. Great exigencies can happen but seldom; and therefore those qualities which have a claim to the veneration of mankind lie hid, for the most part, like subterranean treasures, over which the foot passes as on common ground, till necessity breaks open the golden cavern." Johnson: Idler #51 (April 7, 1759) Link 1,778. Perspective On a Mr. McBean: "I advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome." Mme. D'Arblay's Diary Link 1,804. Hospitality; Perspective; Poverty JOHNSON. 'Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.'BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.'BOSWELL. 'But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.' BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.' James Boswell: Life of Johnson Link