254. Goodness
Burke: "From the experience which I have had, -- and I
have had a great deal, --I have learnt to think better of
mankind." Johnson: "From my experience I have found them
worse in commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat, than I had
any notion of; but more disposed to do another good than I had
conceived." Gibbon: "Less just and more beneficent."
Johnson: "And really it is wonderful, considering how
much attention is necessary for men to take care of themselves,
and ward off immediate evils which press upon them, it is
wonderful how much they do for others. As it is said of the
greatest liar, that he tells more truth than falsehood; so it
may be said of the worst man, that he does more good than
evil."
Boswell: Life
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898. Goodness; Innocence;
Suspicion
"As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is
our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better
to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes
cheated than not to trust."
Johnson: Rambler #79 (December 18, 1750)
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963. Advice; Goodness; Happiness;
Life
"Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man
could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
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1,012. Community; Goodness;
Society
"If man were to feel no incentives to kindness, more than his
general tendency to congenial nature, Babylon or London, with all
their multitudes, would have to him the desolation of a
wilderness; his affections, not compressed into a narrower
compass, would vanish like elemental fire, in boundless
evaporation; he would languish in perpetual insensibility, and
though he might, perhaps, in the first vigour of youth, amuse
himself with the fresh enjoyments of life, yet, when curiosity
should cease, and alacrity subside, he would abandon himself to
the fluctuations of chance, without expecting help against any
calamity, or feeling any wish for the happiness of others."
Johnson: Rambler #99 (February 26, 1751)
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