Doctor Johnson: His Life, Works & Table Talk

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T. F. Unwin, 1884 - 156 páginas

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Página 38 - WE were now treading that illustrious Island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it were possible.
Página 39 - Shakespeare is, above all writers, — at least above all modern writers, — the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.
Página 40 - The force of his comic scenes has suffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places ; they are natural, and therefore durable...
Página 29 - The power of art without the show. In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely Want retired to die.
Página 111 - ... degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests ; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him : and no man but a very impudent dog indeed can as freely command what is in another man's house as if it were his own. Whereas at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome : and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are.
Página 57 - Law's Serious Call to a Holy Life,' expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me ; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry'.
Página 18 - Sir, they may talk of the King as they will ; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.
Página 50 - It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensibility of our wants, 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 own heart approves, to give way to...
Página 90 - Sir, he was a scoundrel, and a coward : a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality ; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death...
Página 47 - In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed...

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