122. Society "All societies, great and small, subsist upon this condition; that as the individuals derive advantages from union, they may likewise suffer inconveniences; that as those who do nothing, and sometimes those who do ill, will have the honours and emoluments of general virtue and general prosperity, so those likewise who do nothing, or perhaps do well, must be involved in the consequences of predominant corruption." Boswell: Life Link 418. Emigration; Independence; Society In countries where life was yet unadjusted, and policy unformed, it sometimes happened, that, by the dissensions of heads of families, by the ambition of daring adventurers, by some accidental pressure or distress, or by the mere discontent of idleness, one part of the community broke off from the rest, and numbers, greater or smaller, forsook their habitations, put themselves under the command of some favourite of fortune, and with, or without the consent of their countrymen or governours, went out to see what better regions they could occupy, and in what place, by conquest or treaty, they could gain a habitation. Sons of enterprise, like these, who committed to their own swords their hopes and their lives, when they left their country, became another nation, with designs, and prospects, and interests, of their own. They looked back no more to their former home; they expected no help from those whom they had left behind; if they conquered, they conquered for themselves; if they were destroyed, they were not by any other power either lamented or revenged. Of this kind seem to have been all the migrations of the early world, whether historical or fabulous, and of this kind were the eruptions of those nations, which, from the north, invaded the Roman empire, and filled Europe with new sovereignties. But when, by the gradual admission of wiser laws and gentler manners, society became more compacted and better regulated, it was found, that the power of every people consisted in union, produced by one common interest, and operating in joint efforts and consistent counsels. From this time independence perceptibly wasted away. No part of the nation was permitted to act for itself. All now had the same enemies and the same friends; the government protected individuals, and individuals were required to refer their designs to the prosperity of the government. By this principle it is, that states are formed and consolidated. Every man is taught to consider his own happiness, as combined with the publick prosperity, and to think himself great and powerful, in proportion to the greatness and power of his governours. Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny Link 789. Society; Truth "There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave, and seek prey only for himself." Johnson: Idler #20 (August 26, 1758) Link 804. Community; Economics; Society "Whatever body, and whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the publick stock." Johnson: Idler #22 (September 16, 1758) Link 816. Conviviality; Society "It is necessary ... to cultivate an habitual alacrity and cheerfulness, that in whatever state we may be placed by Providence, whether we are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or to afford protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact." Johnson: Rambler #74 (December 1, 1750) Link 833. Society "Society, politically regulated, is a state contradistinguished from a state of nature, and any attention to that coalition of interests which makes the happiness of a country, is possible only to those whom inquiry and reflection have enabled to comprehend it." Johnson: Pope (Lives of the Poets) Link 897. Community; Deceit; Society "Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society." Johnson: Rambler #79 (December 18, 1750) Link 979. Conversation; Conviviality; Involvement; Society "After the exercises which the health of the body requires, and which have themselves a natural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, the most eligible amusement of a rational being seems to be that interchange of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation; where suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend, and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased." Johnson: Rambler #89 (January 22, 1751) Link 980. Conviviality; Love; Society "A wise and good man is never so amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals. Heroic generosity or philosophical discoveries may compel veneration and respect, but love always implies some kind of natural or voluntary equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness which disencumbers all minds from awe and solicitude, invites the modest to freedom, and exalts the timorous to confidence. This easy gaiety is certain to please, whatever the character of him that exerts it; if our superiors descend from their elevation, we love them for lessening the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom we can receive no lasting advantage, will always keep our affections while their sprightliness and mirth contribute to our pleasure." Johnson: Rambler #89 (January 22, 1751) Link 999. Cards; Conviviality; Society "I am very sorry I have not learned to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness and consolidates society." Boswell: Tour to the Hebrides Link 1,011. Class; Society "It has long been ordained by Providence, for the conservation of order in the immense variety of nature, and for the regular propagation of the several classes of life with which the elements are peopled, that every creature should be drawn by some secret attraction to those of his own kind; and that not only the gentle and domestic animals which naturally unite into companies, or cohabit by pairs, should continue faithful to their species; but even those ravenous and ferocious savages, which Aristotle observes never to be gregarious, should range mountains and deserts in search of one another, rather than pollute the world with a monstrous birth." Johnson: Rambler #99 (February 26, 1751) Link 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) Link 1,013. Love; Society "To love all men is our duty, so far as it includes a general habit of benevolence, and readiness of occasional kindness; but to love all is equally impossible; at least impossible without the extinction of those passions which now produce all our pains and all our pleasures: without the disuse, if not the abolition of some of our faculties, and the suppression of all of our hopes and fears in apathy and indifference." Johnson: Rambler #99 (February 26, 1751) Link 1,073. Community; Society; Team Work "The apparent insufficiency of every individual to his own happiness or safety compels us to seek from one another assistance and support. The necessity of joint efforts for the execution of any great or extensive design, the variety of powers disseminated in the species, and the proportion between the defects and excellences of different persons demand an interchange of help and communication of intelligence, and, by frequent reciprocations of beneficence, unite mankind in society and friendship." Johnson: Rambler #104 (March 16, 1751) Link 1,114. Society; Stimulation; Variety "Long confinement to the same company, which perhaps similitude of taste first brought together, quickly contracts his faculties, and makes a thousand things offensive that are in themselves indifferent: a man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind." Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751) Link 1,121. Conviviality; Society "That it is every man's interest to be pleased will need little proof: that it is his interest to please others experience will inform him." Johnson: Rambler #112 (April 13, 1751) Link 1,149. Corruption; Society; Virtue "No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous." Johnson: An Introduction To The Political State of Great Britain Link 1,506. Society; Unity     The reigning philosophy informs us, that the vast bodies which constitute the universe, are regulated in their progress through the ethereal spaces, by the perpetual agency of contrary forces; by one of which they are restrained from deserting their orbits, and losing themselves in the immensity of heaven; and held off by the other from rushing together, and clustering round their centre with everlasting cohesion.     The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men; we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connexion with our fellow-beings, and in total separation from them; we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests. Johnson: Adventurer #45 (March 27, 1753) Link 1,538. Economics; Society It were a speculation worthy of a philosophical mind, to examine how much is taken away from our native abilities, as well as added to them, by artificial expedients. We are so accustomed to give and receive assistance, that each of us singly can do little for himself; and there is scarce any one among us, however contracted may be his form of life, who does not enjoy the labour of a thousand artists. Johnson: Adventurer #67 (June 26, 1753) Link 1,539. Society To receive and to communicate assistance, constitutes the happiness of human life: man may, indeed, preserve his existence in solitude, but can enjoy it only in society; the greatest understanding of an individual, doomed to procure food and clothing for himself, will barely supply him with expedients to keep off death from day to day; but as one of a large community performing only his share of the common business, he gains leisure for intellectual pleasures, and enjoys the happiness of reason and reflection. Johnson: Adventurer #67 (June 26, 1753) Link 1,637. Society; Solitude "I know not whether those who thus ambitiously repeat the praises of solitude, have always considered, how much they depreciate mankind by declaring, that whatever is excellent or desirable is to obtained by departing from them; that the assistance which we may derive from one another, is not equivalent to the evils which we have to fear; that the kindness of a few is overbalanced by the malice of many; and that the protection of society is too dearly purchased by encountering its dangers and enduring its oppressions." Johnson: Adventurer #126 (January 19, 1754) Link 1,665. Humanity; Society; Teamwork "The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind." Johnson: Adventurer #137 (February 26, 1754) Link