Other related topics at:
Attention, Diligence, Focus, and
Perseverance...
568. Academia; Effort
"That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at
least equal to that which any other kind of greatness can
require, will be allowed by those who wish to elevate the
character of a scholar; since they cannot but know that every
human acquisition is valuable in proportion to the difficulty of
its attainment."
Johnson: Rambler #21 (May 29, 1750)
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639. Effort
"He that embarks in the voyage of life, will always wish to
advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the
oar; and many founder in the passage, while they lie waiting for
the gale that is to waft them to their wish."
Johnson: Idler #2 (April 22, 1758)
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674. Ambition; Effort; Wealth
"It is true ... that many have neglected opportunities of raising
themselves to honour and to wealth, and rejected the kindest
offers of fortune; but, however their moderation may be boasted
by themselves, or admired by such as only view them at a
distance, it will be, perhaps, seldom found that they value
riches less, but they dread labour or danger more than others;
they are unable to rouse themselves to action, to strain in the
race of competition, or to stand the shock of conquest; but
though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they
nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy
what they dare not seize."
Johnson: Rambler #58 (October 6, 1750)
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739. Effort; Quality; Value
"Where there is no difficulty there is no praise."
Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)
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793. Effort; Time
"Not only in the slumber of sloth, but in the dissipation of ill
directed industry, is the shortness of life generally forgotten.
As some men lose their hours in laziness, because they suppose
that there is time enough for the reparation of neglect; others
busy themselves in providing that no length of life may want
employment; and it often happens that sluggishness and activity
are equally surprised by the last summons, and perish not more
differently from each other, than the fowl that received the shot
in her flight, from her that is killed upon the bush."
Johnson: Rambler #71 (November 20, 1750)
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933. Effort; Idleness; Relativity
"No man can perform so little as not to have reason to
congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude
that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be
useful."
Johnson: Rambler #83 (January 1, 1751)
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938. Effort
"It is never without grief that I find a man capable of
ratiocination or invention enlisting himself int he secondary
class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of
gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by
labour, and known the sweets of a life blessed at once with the
ease of idleness and the reputation of knowledge, he will not
easily be brought to undergo again the toil of thinking, or leave
his toys and trinkets for arguments and principles; arguments
which require circumspection and vigilance, and principles which
cannot be obtained but by the drudgery of meditation."
Johnson: Rambler #83 (January 1, 1751)
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1,072. Action/Inaction; Effort; Fear;
Novelty
"There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds
than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in
trivial employments and minute studies, and detain them in a
middle state, between the tediousness of total inactivity and the
fatigue of laborious efforts, enchant them at once with ease and
novelty, and vitiate them with the luxury of learning. The
necessity of doing something and the fear of undertaking much
sink the historian to a genealogist, the philosopher to a
journalist of the weather, and the mathematician to a constructor
of dials."
Johnson: Rambler #103 (March 12, 1751)
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1,136. Effort; Hope
"All industry must be excited by hope."
Johnson: Rambler #117 (April 30, 1751)
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1,205. Awe; Effort; Intimidation;
Patience
"It is common for those who have never accustomed themselves to
the labour of inquiry, nor invigorated their confidence by
conquests over difficulty, to sleep in the gloomy quiescence of
astonishment, without any effort to animate inquiry or dispel
obscurity. What they cannot immediately conceive they consider
as too high to be reached, or too extensive to be comprehended;
they therefore content themselves with the gaze of folly, forbear
to attempt what they have no hopes of performing; and resign the
pleasure of rational contemplation to more pertinacious study or
more active faculties."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
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1,545. Effort
He that floats lazily down the stream, in pursuit of something
borne along by the same current, will find himself indeed moved
forward; but unless he lays his hand to the oar, and increases
his speed by his own labour, must be always at the same distance
from that which he is following.
Johnson: Adventurer #69 (July 3, 1753)
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1,598. Life; Complacency; Effort
"To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest
human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer:
but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast
neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless
filler of existence; ad if he is content with his own character,
must owe his satisfaction to insensibility."
Johnson: Adventurer #111 (November 27, 1753)
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