Other related topics at: All In Your Mind Virtue and Vice 572. Choice; Self-Confidence "...if we make the praise or blame of others the rule of our conduct, we shall be distracted by a boundless variety of irreconcilable judgments, be held in perpetual suspense between contrary impulses, and consult forever without determination." Johnson: Rambler #23 (June 5, 1750) Link 573. Consultation of Others; Self-Confidence; Writing "Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions." Johnson: Rambler #23 (June 5, 1750) Link 1,282. Ability; Self-Confidence "It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability; and fear of miscarriage, which hinders our first attempts, is gradually dissipated as our skill advances towards certainty of success." Johnson: Rambler #159 (September 24, 1751) Link 1,386. Criticism; Self-Confidence; Writing "Critics ought never to be consulted, but while errors may yet be rectified or insipidity suppressed. But when the book has once been dismissed into the world, and can be no more retouched, I know not whether a very different conduct should not be prescribed, and whether firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to overpower arrogance and repel brutality." Johnson: Rambler #176 (November 23, 1751) Link 1,406. Admiration; Envy; Self-Confidence "Envy, curiosity, and a sense of the imperfection of our present state, incline us to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of others above their real value." Johnson: Rambler #180 (December 7, 1751) Link 1,428. Self-Confidence; Virtue Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our heart approves, to give way to any thing but conviction, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives. Johnson: Rambler #185 (December 24, 1751) Link 1,511. Self-confidence "Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets) Link 1,568. Self-confidence "He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty" Johnson: Idler #57 (May 19, 1759) Note: Johnson lists this as one of the rules of a character named Sophron. As with all characters, the opinions are not necessarily Johnson's. Johnson represents this character as an isolationist who ventures few risks, to his disadvantage. Link 1,577. Pioneers; Self-confidence "They who find themselves inclined to censure new undertakings, only because they are new, should consider, that the folly of projection* is very seldom the folly of a fool; it is commonly the ebullition of a capacious mind, crowded with variety of knowledge, and heated with intenseness of thought; it proceeds often from the consciousness of uncommon powers, from the confidence of those, who having already done much, are easily persuaded that they can do more." Johnson: Adventurer #99 (October 16, 1753) *This is not projection in the psychological sense, but projection in the sense of new ideas and initiatives. Link