Samuel Johnson - The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
"If those whom nature has thus closely united are the torments of each other, where shall we look for tenderness and consolation?"
"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
"Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life, very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?"
"To judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past; of joy and grief, the past is the object, and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have been before the effect."
**** "Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and PROHIBITORY, and withdrawing our thoughts from that, of which every hour brings us NEARER TO THE BEGINNING, and of which NO LENGTH OF TIME will bring us to the END." ****
Interesting thoughts when applied to the present, no?
"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
"Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life, very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?"
"To judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past; of joy and grief, the past is the object, and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have been before the effect."
**** "Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and PROHIBITORY, and withdrawing our thoughts from that, of which every hour brings us NEARER TO THE BEGINNING, and of which NO LENGTH OF TIME will bring us to the END." ****
Interesting thoughts when applied to the present, no?