Date: Saturday, November 17, 1750

"[F]or most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against them."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, December 13, 1750

"The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository of the mind, and lies among other lumber of t...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750

"This inquiry seems to have been neglected for want of remembering, that all action has its origin in the mind, and that therefore to suffer the thoughts to be vitiated, is to poison the fountains of morality."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, December 22, 1750

"When they are condemned by the elements to retirement, and debarred from most of the diversions which are called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of inquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness which hangs always flagging upon the vacant mind."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday March 24, 1750

"Those who have proceeded so far as to appeal to the tribunal of succeeding times, are not likely to be cured of their infatuation; but all endeavours ought to be used for the prevention of a disease, for which, when it has attained its height, perhaps no remedy will be found in the gardens of ph...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 3, 1750

"The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 1750

"Yet, if we consider the conduct of those sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by such appearances of wisdom, but that no id...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 1751

"[T]those who desire to partake of the pleasure of wit must contribute to its production, since the mind stagnates without external ventilation, and that effervescence of the fancy, which flashes into transport, can be raised only by the infusion of dissimilar ideas."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, April 6, 1751

"That to please the Lord and Father of the universe, is the supreme interest of created and dependent beings, as it is easily proved, has been universally confessed; and since all rational agents are conscious of having neglected or violated the duties prescribed to them, the fear of being reject...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, November 9, 1751

"But it is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation; and that the powers of the mind, when they are unbound and expanded by the sunshine of felicity, more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom into goodness."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)