Other related topics at: All In Your Mind 7. Friendship; Pleasure "It is strange how many things will happen to intercept every pleasure, though it [be] only that of two friends meeting together." Boswell: Life Link 228. Pleasure "Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it." Johnson: Letter to Boswell Link 499. After-life; Contemplation; Mortality; Pleasure "Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous by endearing us to a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use but that it disengages us from allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint." Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 533. Hope; Imagination; Pleasure "The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope." Johnson: Rambler #2 (March 24, 1750) Link 685. History; Pleasure; Reading; Writing "It is not easy for the most artful writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never been acquainted. Histories of the downfalls of kingdoms and revolutions of empires are read with great tranquillity; the imperial tragedy pleases common auditors only by its pomp of ornaments and grandeur of ideas; and the man whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart never fluttered but at the rise or fall of the stocks, wonders how the attention can be seized or the affection agitated by a tale of love." Johnson: Rambler #60 (October 13, 1750) Link 727. Appearances; Pleasure; Vanity "Pleasure is ... seldom such as it appears to others, nor often such as we represent it to ourselves. Of the ladies that sparkle at a musical performance, a very small number has any quick sensibility of harmonious sounds. But every one that goes has her pleasure. She has the pleasure of wearing fine clothes, and of showing them, of outshining those whom she suspects to envy her; she has the pleasure of appearing among other ladies in a place where the race of meaner mortals seldom intrudes, and of reflecting that, in the conversations of the next morning, her name will be mentioned among those that sat in the first row." Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758) Link 728. Appearances; Diversion; Fashion; Pleasure; Vanity "Whatever diversion is costly will be frequented by those who desire to be thought rich; and whatever has, by any accident, become fashionable, easily continues its reputation, because every one is ashamed of not partaking it." Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758) Link 779. Pleasure "Pleasure is only received when we believe that we give it in return." Johnson: Rambler #69 (November 13, 1750) Link 792. Expectation; Pleasure "The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment." Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750) Link 815. Pleasure "Men seldom give pleasure where they are not pleased themselves." Johnson: Rambler #74 (December 1, 1750) Link 1,064. Pleasure "The power of pleasing is very often obstructed by the desire." Johnson: Rambler #101 (March 5, 1751) -- from Hilarius, a fictional correspondent Link 1,399. Eating; Health; Pleasure "There is no pleasure which men of every age and sect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt than the gratifications of the palate, an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness that scarcely the most shameless of the sensual herd have dared to defend it: yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick nor lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily sacrificed; and for this are half the miseries endured which urge impatience to call on death." Johnson: Rambler #178 (November 30, 1751) Link 1,741. Pleasure "Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks." Johnson: Idler #58 (May 26, 1759) Link 1,742. Pleasure "Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment." Johnson: Idler #58 (May 26, 1759) Link 1,743. Pleasure "Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed." Johnson: Idler #58 (May 26, 1759) Link