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All In Your Mind
17. Diversion; Life
"Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced
to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our
time, of that time which never can return."
Johnson: Letter to Baretti (June 10, 1761)
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135. Depression; Diversion;
Hobbies
Talking of constitutional melancholy,
he observed, "A man so
afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat
with them." Boswell: "May not he think them down, Sir?"
Johnson: "No, Sir. To attempt to think them down
is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed
chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a
book, and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the
management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in
a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.."
Boswell: "Should not he provide amusements for himself?
Would it not, for instance, be right for him to take a course of
chymistry?" Johnson: "Let him take a course of
chymistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course of any thing
to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as
many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it
can fly from itself."
Boswell: Life
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161. Diversion
"Why, life must be filled up (says Johnson), and the man who is
not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with
such as his senses can afford."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
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171. Diversion; Hunting
"I have now learned, by hunting, to perceive, that it is no
diversion at all, nor ever takes a man out of himself for a
moment: the dogs have less sagacity than I could have prevailed
on myself to suppose; and the gentlemen often call to me not to
ride over them. It is very strange, and very melancholy, that
the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call
hunting one of them."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
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182. Conversation; Diversion;
Stimulation
"You hunt in the morning (says he), and crowd to the public rooms
at night, and call it diversion; when your heart knows it
is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and your wits get blunted
for want of some other mind to sharpen them upon. There is in
this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but
exchange of ideas in conversation; and whoever has once
experienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to
country friendships and rural sports, must either be contented to
turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away
like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual
food."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
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190. Diversion; Mourning
After dinner Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the
death of her son. I said it would be very distressing to Thrale,
but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think
of. Johnson: "No, Sir, Thrale will forget it first.
She has many things that she may think of.
He has many things that he must think of."
Boswell: Life
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199. Diversion; Drinking
"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but
drinking."
Boswell: Life
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257. Diversion; Music
"It must be born with a man to be contented to take up with
little things. Women have a great advantage that they may take
up with little things, without disgracing themselves: a man
cannot, except with fiddling. Had I learned to fiddle I should
have done nothing else."
Boswell: Life
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309. Character; Diversion
Sir Joshua having also observed that the real character of a man
was found out by his amusements, --Johnson added, "Yes, Sir, no
man is a hypocrite in his pleasures."
Boswell: Life
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494. Diversion; Delusion; Solitude
"He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combination, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow.
"In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favorite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish."
Johnson: Rasselas [Imlac]
Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from
Rasselas.
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640. Diversion
"It is naturally indifferent to this race of men what
entertainment they receive, so they are but entertained. They
catch, with equal eagerness, at a moral lecture or the memoirs of
a robber; a prediction of the appearance of a comet, or the
calculation of the chances of a lottery."
Johnson: Idler #3 (April 29, 1758)
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724. Diversion
"The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are
counterfeit. ... The general condition of life is so full of
misery, that we are glad to catch delight without enquiring
whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed."
Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758)
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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)
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729. Appearances; Madness of Crowds;
Diversion
"To every place of entertainment we go with expectation and
desire of being pleased; we meet others who are brought by the
same motives; no one will be the first to own the
disappointment; one face reflects the smile of another, till
each believes the rest delighted, and endeavours to catch and
transmit the circulating rapture. In time, all are deceived by
the cheat to which all contribute. The fiction of happiness is
propagated by every tongue, and confirmed by every look, till at
last all profess the joy which they do not feel, consent to yield
to the general delusion, and, when the voluntary dream is at an
end, lament that bliss is of so short a duration."
Johnson: Idler #18 (August 12, 1758)
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914. Actors/Acting; Diversion
"At all other assemblies, he that comes to receive delight will
be expected to give it; but in the theatre nothing is necessary
to the amusement of two hours, but to sit down and be willing to
be pleased."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
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939. Choice; Diversion; Exercise;
Hunting
"The necessity of action is not only demonstrable from the fabric
of the body, but evident from observation of the universal
practice of mankind, who for the preservation of health in those
whose rank or wealth exempts them from the necessity of lucrative
labour, have invented sports and diversions, though not of equal
use to the world with manual trades, yet of equal fatigue to
those who practice them, and differing only from the drudgery of
the husbandman or manufacturer, as they are acts of choice, and
therefore performed without the painful sense of compulsion. The
huntsman rises early, pursues his game through all the dangers
and obstructions of the chase, swims rivers, and scales
precipices, till he returns home no less harassed than the
soldier, and has perhaps sometimes incurred as great hazard or
wounds or death: yet he has no motive to incite his ardour; he
is neither subject to the commands of a general, nor dreads any
penalties for neglect and disobedience; he has neither profit
nor honour to expect from his perils and his conquests; but
toils without the hope of mural or civic garlands, and must
content himself with the praise of his tenants and
companions."
Johnson: Rambler #85 (January 8, 1751)
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946. Boredom; Diversion; Idleness;
Time; Wealth
"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and ... the
unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than
they know how to use. To set himself free from these
incumbrences, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over
Europe; one pulls down his house and calls architects about him;
another buys a seat in the country, and follows his hounds over
hedges and through rivers; one makes collections of shells; and
another searches the world for tulips and carnations."
Johnson: Idler #30 (November 11, 1758)
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1,058. Diversion;
Superficiality
"You should give a very clear and ample description of the whole
set of polite acquirements; a complete history of forms,
fashions, frolics, of routs, drums, hurricanes, balls,
assemblies, ridottos, masquerades, auctions, plays, operas,
puppet-shows, and bear gardens; of all those delights which
profitably engage the attention of the most sublime characters,
and by which they have brought to such amazing perfection the
whole art and mystery of passing day after day, week after week,
and year after year, without the heavy assistance of any one
thing that formal creatures are pleased to call useful and
necessary."
Johnson: Rambler #100 -- a fictional correspondent named
Chariessa
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1,059. Diversion; Superficiality
"Nothing can be clearer than that an everlasting round of
diversion, and the more lively and hurrying the better, is the
most important end of human life. It is really prodigious, so
much as the world is improved, that there should in these days be
persons so ignorant and stupid as to think it necessary to
mispend their time, and trouble their heads about any thing else
than pursuing the present fancy; for what else is living
for?"
Johnson: Rambler #100 -- a fictional correspondent named
Chariessa
Link
1,132. Diversion
"Almost every man has some art by which he steals his thoughts
away from his present state."
Johnson: Idler #32 (November 25, 1752)
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1,202. Boredom; Diversion;
Satisfaction
"To be able to procure its own entertainments, and to subsist
upon its own stock, is not the prerogative of every mind. There
are, indeed, understandings so fertile and comprehensive, that
they can always feed reflection with new supplies, and suffer
nothing from the preclusion of adventitious amusements; as some
cities have within their own walls enclosed ground enough to feed
their inhabitants in a siege. But others live only from day to
day, and must be constantly enabled, by foreign supplies, to keep
out the encroachments of languor and stupidity."
Johnson: Rambler #135 (July 2, 1751)
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1,643. Diversion; Madness of
Crowds
"As people who have the same inclination generally flock
together, every trifler is kept in countenance by the sight of
others as unprofitably active as himself; by kindling the heat of
competition, he in time thinks himself important, and by having
his mnind intensely engaged, he is secured from weariness of
himself."
Johnson: Adventurer #128 (January 26, 1754)
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