1,790. Skepticism; Truth "Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull." Boswell: Life of Johnson Link 1,816. Credulity; Novelty; Skepticism "Every novelty appears more wonderful as it is more remote from any thing with which experience or testimony has hitherto acquainted us; and if it passes further beyond the notions that we have been accustomed to form, it becomes at last incredible." Johnson: Idler #87 (December 15, 1759) Link 1,818. Diversity; Skepticism; Tolerance "We seldom consider that human knowledge is very narrow, that national manners are formed by chance, that uncommon conjunctures of causes produce rare effects, or that what is impossible at one time or place may yet happen in another. It is always easier to deny than inquire. To refuse credit confers for a moment an appearance of superiority, which every little mind is tempted to assume when it may be gained so cheaply as by withdrawing attention from evidence, and declining the fatigue of comparing probabilities. The most pertinacious and vehement demonstrator may be wearied in time by continual negation; and incredulity, which an old poet, in his address to Raleigh, calls 'the wit of fools,' obtunds the arguments which it cannot answer, as woolsacks deaden arrows though they cannot repel them." Johnson: Idler #87 (December 15, 1759) Link 1,819. Diversity; Skepticism "Many relations of travellers have been slighted as fabulous, till more frequent voyages have confirmed their veracity; and it may reasonably be imagined, that many ancient historians are unjustly suspected of falsehood, because our own times afford nothing that resembles what they tell." Johnson: Idler #87 (December 15, 1759) Link