Other related topics at:
All In Your Mind
1,120. Equanimity; Life; Moderation;
Myopia; Perspective
"The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and
the least; some surpass our power by their magnitude, and some
escape our notice by their number and their frequency. But the
indispensable business of life will afford sufficient exercise to
every human understanding; and such is the limitation of the
human powers that, by attention to trifles, we must let things of
importance pass unobserved; when we examine a mite with a glass,
we see nothing but a mite."
Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751)
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1,237. Myopia
"Mankind are kept perpetually busy by their fears or desires, and
have not more leisure from their own affairs than to acquaint
themselves with the accidents of the current day. Engaged in
contriving some refuge from calamity, or in shortening the way to
some new possession, they seldom suffer their thoughts to wander
to the past or future; none but a few solitary students have
leisure to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or sages;
and names which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents
shrink at last into cloisters or colleges."
Johnson: Rambler #146 (August 10, 1751)
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1,370. Myopia; Socialization
"As any action or posture long continued will distort and
disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and
contracted by perpetual application to the same set of
ideas."
Johnson: Rambler #173 (November 12, 1751)
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1,388. Myopia; Perfectionism
"Some seem always to read with the microscope of criticism, and
employ their whole attention upon minute elegance, or faults
scarcely visible to common observation. The dissonance of a
syllable, the recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a
particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the slightest
defect in construction or arrangement, swell before their eyes
into enormities. As they discern with great exactness, they
comprehend but a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness
of the design, the general spirit of the performance, the
artifice of connection, or the harmony of the parts; they never
conceive how small a proportion that which they are busy
contemplating bears to the whole, or how the petty inaccuracies
with which they are offended are absorbed and lost in the general
excellence."
Johnson: Rambler #176 (November 23, 1751)
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