2. Chesterfield; Ouch!!!; Wit "This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!" Boswell: Life Link 50. Failure; Wit "I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it." Boswell: Life Link 389. Abuse of Power; Wit "To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions." Johnson: Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland's Islands Link 748. Reticence; Wit "There are men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation; whom merriment confuses, and objection disconcerts; whose bashfulness restrains their exertion, and suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is past; or whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled." Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets) Link 861. Truth; Wit "Wit can stand its ground against Truth only a little while." Johnson: Swift (Lives of the Poets) Link 1,061. Attention; Conversation; Wit "Perhaps no kind of superiority is more flattering or alluring than that which is conferred by the powers of conversation, by extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, copiousness of language, and fertility of sentiment. In other exertions of genius the greater part of the praise is unknown and unenjoyed; the writer, indeed, spreads his reputation to a wider extent, but receives little pleasure or advantage from the diffusions of his name, and only obtains a kind of nominal sovereignty over regions which pay no tribute. The colloquial wit has always his own radiance reflected on himself, and enjoys all the pleasure which he bestows; he finds his power confessed by every one that approaches him, sees friendship kindling with rapture, and attention swelling into praise." Johnson: Rambler #101 (March 5, 1751) — from Hilarius, a fictional correspondent Link 1,065. Conversation; Wit "Those who desire to partake of the pleasure of wit must contribute to its production, since the mind stagnates without external ventilation." Johnson: Rambler #101 (March 5, 1751) -- from Hilarius, a fictional correspondent Link 1,224. Wit "Consider, Mr. Rambler, and compassionate the condition of a man, who has taught every company to expect from a continual feast of laughter, an unintermitted stream of jocularity. The task of every other slave has an end. The rower in time reaches the port; the lexicographer at last finds the conclusion of his alphabet; only the hapless wit has its labour always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectations of another." Johnson: Rambler #141 (July 23, 1751) [from a fictional correspondent named Papilius] Link 1,313. Wit "Wit, too copiously poured out, agitates the hearer with emotions rather violent than pleasing; every one shrinks from the force of its oppression, the company sits entranced and overpowered; all are astonished, but nobody is pleased." Johnson: Idler #34 (December 9, 1758) Link 1,372. Wit "I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt." Johnson: Rambler #174 (November 15, 1751) (a fictional correspondent, Dicaculus) Link 1,432. Conversation; Vanity; Wit "None of the desires dictated by vanity is more general, or less blamable, than that of being distinguished for the arts of conversation." Johnson: Rambler #188 (January 4, 1752) Link 1,433. Conviviality; Envy; Wit "Few are more frequently envied than those who have the power of forcing attention wherever they come, whose entrance is considered as a promise of felicity, and whose departure is lamented like the recess of the sun from northern climates, as a privation of all that enlivens fancy or inspirits gaiety." Johnson: Rambler #188 (January 4, 1752) Link 1,434. Conversation; Conviviality; Wit "The pleasure which men are able to give in conversation holds no stated proportion to their knowledge or their virtue. Many find their way to the tables and parties of those who never considered them as of the least importance in any other place; we have all, at one time or other been content to love those whom we could not esteem, and been persuaded to try the dangerous experiment of admitting him for a companion whom we knew to be too ignorant for a counsellor, and too treacherous for a friend." Johnson: Rambler #188 (January 4, 1752) Link 1,450. Wit "Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; an effusion of wit, therefore, presupposes an accumulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose new assemblages. Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form any combinations from few ideas, as many changes can never be rung upon a few bells." Johnson: Rambler #194 (January 25, 1752) Link