12. Disappointment; Experience; Learning;
Reality
"I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to
compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to
time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind
of observation that we grow daily less liable to be
disappointed."
Johnson: Letter to Bennet Langton
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55. Eating; Experience
"I, Madam, who live at a variety of
good tables, am a much better
judge of cookery, than any person who has a very tolerable cook,
but lives much at home; for his palate is gradually adapted to
the taste of his cook: whereas, Madam, in trying by a wider
range, I can more exquisitely judge."
Boswell: Life
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363. Experience; Knowledge
"It is true that of far the greater part of things, we must
content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit,
or analogy supply; but it is true likewise, that these ideas are
always incomplete, and that at least, till we have compared them
with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more,
we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain
more principles of reasoning, and found a wider base of
analogy."
Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
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380. Experience; Tourism; Travel
"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better
countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune
carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."
Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Link
1,056. Drama; Experience;
Reading
"Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew
human nature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades
of character, nor the combinations of concurring nor the
perplexity of contending passions. He had read much and knew
what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, and
was deficient in the knowledge which experience must confer."
Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
Link
1,453. Experience; Hope
"We naturally indulge those ideas that please us. Hope will
predominate in every mind, till it has been suppressed by
frequent disappointments."
Johnson: Rambler #196 (February 1, 1752)
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