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PREFACE.

THERE is a great power in texts; they have often produced an influence upon a man's life, nay even on a nation's life; but it is a mistake to suppose that there are no texts but Bible ones. All Aphorisms are texts, and therefore more than mere individual sayings; they are the generalised expressions of many human experiences, as doctrines are the crystallised forms of the faith of many souls.

We have thought it worth while to collect a series of such, from the works of him, who as Carlyle says, "was the true spiritual edifier and soul's father of all England; who was, and till very lately continued to be, the man named SAMUEL JOHNSON, who for some three-quarters of a century has been the prophet of the English; the man by whose light the English people, in

public and in private, more than by any other man's, have guided their existence."

JOHNSON'S sympathies were universal with all departments of life and thought, and therefore men of all tastes and pursuits will find in his Aphorisms much that is at once interesting and instructive.

We venture to think that these Aphorisms will supply a desideratum in literature, considering that there are not more than half-a-dozen books of Aphorisms in the English language. We have arranged them alphabetically, that the work of reference may be an easy one. These have been gathered from many recondite sources, with great labour; but the labour has been a pleasure, which no amount of criticism can augment or diminish.

We now dismiss them with "frigid tranquility," venturing to think that it will hardly be disputed by any one whose knowledge of literature makes his opinion at all valuable, that these Aphorisms form one of the richest treasuries for intellectual thought that has yet been discovered in the world of literature.

APHORISMS.

Abuse

It is better a man should be abused than

forgotten.-Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 181.

Abuse They sting one, but as a fly stings a horse; (Newspaper) and the eagle will not catch flies.—Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 186.

Accom

Adventitious Adventitious accomplishments may be posplishments sessed by all ranks, but one may easily distinguish the born gentlewoman.-Life. Maxwell's Collectanea, 1770.

Young I love the young dogs of this age; they Acquaintance have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not so good scholars.-Life. Maxwell's Collectanea, 1770.

✓Morality of an The morality of an action depends on the

Action motive from which we act. If I fling half-acrown to a beggar, with the intention to break his head, and he picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good; but, with respect to me, the action is bad. -Life. May 24, 1763.

In the pulpit, little action can be proper, Pulpit Action for action can illustrate nothing. Theology has few topics to which action can be appropriated.— The Idler, No. 90.

Action

Action can have no effect upon reasonable

in Speaking minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you speak to a dog, you use action you hold up your hand thus, because he is a brute; and in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less influence upon them.Life. April 3, 1773.

Admiration

As a man advances in life he gets what is better than admiration-judgment to estimate things at their own value.-Life. April 16, 1775.

Adversity has ever been considered as the Adversity state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being free from flatterers.Rambler, No. 28.

Advice is offensive, because it shows us Advice that we are known to others, as well as to ourselves.-Rambler, No. 155.

Advice

Good Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.-Rambler, No. 87.

Distribution To love all men is our duty; but to love

of

Affection all equally is impossible.-Rambler, No. 99.

Affection more

It is always necessary to be loved, but not than Empire always necessary to be reverenced. Ram

bler, No. 188.

Affectation in Hardly any man dies without affectation. Dying. -Journal to the Hebrides. Collectanea by

Boswell. Nov. II.

Affliction

To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. -Letter No. 192, to Mrs. Piozzi.

The world has few greater pleasures than ✓Old Age that which two friends enjoy, in tracing back, at some distant time, those transactions and events through which they have passed together. One of the old man's miseries is, that he cannot easily find a companion able to partake with him of the past.-Letter to Saunders Welch. Feb. 3, 1778.

Old Age

It is a man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.— Life. April 9, 1778.

Bluntedness In the decline of life shame and grief are of Old Age of short duration.-Rasselas, ch. iv.

Dependence

There is nothing against which an old man in Old Age should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.-Life. March 26, 1776.

Old Age and

The old man pays regard to riches; the Youth youth reverences virtue. The old man deifies prudence the youth commits himself to magnanimity and chance.-Rasselas, ch. xxiv.

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