work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5812,"","Searching ""mind"" and 'invad"" in HDIS (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.",2005-05-04 00:00:00 UTC," Nor yet explore, with curious bent,
What, known, would but thy soul torment,
And all its hopes betray:
When painful truths invade the mind,
Ev'n wisdom wishes to be blind,
And hates th' officious ray.
(p. 54; cf. p. 253 in London Magazine)",,15487,"•I've included thrice: Invasion and Light and Blindness.
• cite in MS: p. 182, ll. 22-3, 54. ","""When painful truths invade the mind, / Ev'n wisdom wishes to be blind, / And hates th' officious ray.""",Empire,2014-07-10 20:44:43 UTC,""
5767,"",Reading,2014-04-29 04:38:14 UTC,"His great fear of death, and the strange dark manner in which Sir John Hawkins imparts the uneasiness which he expressed on account of offences with which he charged himself, may give occasion to injurious suspicions, as if there had been something of more than ordinary criminality weighing upon his conscience. On that account, therefore, as well as from the regard to truth which he inculcated, I am to mention, (with all possible respect and delicacy however,) that his conduct after he came to London, and had associated with Savage and others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a younger man. It was well known, that his amorous inclinations were uncommonly strong and impetuous. He owned to many of his friends, that he used to take women of the town to taverns, and hear them relate their history. In short, it must not be concealed, that like many other good and pious men, amongst whom we may place the Apostle Paul, upon his own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever ""warring against the law of his mind,""--and that in his combats with them, he was sometimes overcome.
(II, pp. 567-8, pp. 985-6 in Penguin)",,23825,"","""In short, it must not be concealed, that like many other good and pious men, amongst whom we may place the Apostle Paul, upon his own authority, Johnson was not free from propensities which were ever 'warring against the law of his mind,'--and that in his combats with them, he was sometimes overcome.""","",2014-04-29 04:38:14 UTC,""
7934,"",Reading,2014-06-19 16:55:19 UTC,"The reward which Nature bestows upon good behaviour under misfortune, is thus exactly proportioned to the degree of that good behaviour. The only compensation she could possibly make for the bitterness of pain and distress is thus too, in equal degrees of good behaviour, exactly proportioned to the degree of that pain and distress. In proportion to the degree of the self-command which is necessary in order to conquer our natural sensibility, the pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much the greater; and this pleasure and pride are so great that no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them. Misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction; and though it may be too much, perhaps, to say, with the Stoics, that, under such an accident as that above mentioned, the happiness of a wise man is in every respect equal to what it could have been under any other circumstances; yet it must be acknowledged, at least, that this complete enjoyment of his own self-applause, though it may not altogether extinguish, must certainly very much alleviate his sense of his own sufferings.
(text from from econlib.org, III.i.69; cf. pp. 147-8 in Liberty Fund ed.)",,24011,"","""In proportion to the degree of the self-command which is necessary in order to conquer our natural sensibility, the pleasure and pride of the conquest are so much the greater; and this pleasure and pride are so great that no man can be altogether unhappy who completely enjoys them.""",Empire,2014-06-19 16:55:19 UTC,""
7934,"",Reading,2014-06-19 19:36:44 UTC,"But though the total want of sensibility to personal injury, to personal danger and distress, would, in such situations, take away the whole merit of self-command, that sensibility, however, may very easily be too exquisite, and it frequently is so. When the sense of propriety, when the authority of the judge within the breast, can control this extreme sensibility, that authority must no doubt appear very noble and very great. But the exertion of it may be too fatiguing; it may have too much to do. The individual, by a great effort, may behave perfectly well. But the contest between the two principles, the warfare within the breast, may be too violent to be at all consistent with internal tranquillity and happiness. The wise man whom Nature has endowed with this too exquisite sensibility, and whose too lively feelings have not been sufficiently blunted and hardened by early education and proper exercise, will avoid, as much as duty and propriety will permit, the situations for which he is not perfectly fitted. The man whose feeble and delicate constitution renders him too sensible to pain, to hardship, and to every sort of bodily distress, should not wantonly embrace the profession of a soldier. The man of too much sensibility to injury, should not rashly engage in the contests of faction. Though the sense of propriety should be strong enough to command all those sensibilities, the composure of the mind must always be disturbed in the struggle. In this disorder the judgment cannot always maintain its ordinary acuteness and precision; and though he may always mean to act properly, he may often act rashly and imprudently, and in a manner which he himself will, in the succeeding part of his life, be for ever ashamed of. A certain intrepidity, a certain firmness of nerves and hardiness of constitution, whether natural or acquired, are undoubtedly the best preparatives for all the great exertions of self-command.
(text from http://www.econlib.org, VI.iii.19; cf. p. 245 in Liberty Fund ed.)",,24033,"","""But the contest between the two principles, the warfare within the breast, may be too violent to be at all consistent with internal tranquillity and happiness.""",Empire,2014-06-19 19:36:52 UTC,""