Quotes on Intimidation
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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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1,207. Awe; Fear; Intimidation
"Long calculations or complex diagrams affright the timorous and unexperienced from a second view; but if we have skill sufficient to analyze them into simple principles, it will be discovered that our fear was groundless. Divide and conquer is a principle equally just in science as in policy. Complication is a species of confederacy, which, while it continues united, bids defiance to the most active and vigorous intellect; but of which every member is separately weak, and which may, therefore, be quickly subdued if it can once be broken."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
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1,209. Intimidation; Perseverance; Vanity
"To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles."
Johnson: Rambler #137 (July 9, 1751)
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1,216. Idleness; Intimidation
"Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult."
Johnson: Boerhaave
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