The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order; a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published. The Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great-Britain, for Near Half a Century, During which He Flourished. In Two Volumes, Volume 2

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Henry Baldwin, 1791 - Authors, English - 516 pages
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User Review  - keithhamblen - LibraryThing

12/22/20 I own the complete set (vol 1-54) and keep them at home on the top west shelf of my office; this includes The Great Conversation (which is volume 1) and The Great Ideas (volumes 2-3, the ... Read full review

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User Review  - donbuch1 - LibraryThing

This classic series represents the Western canon not without academic controversy. The latest volumes of the Great Books include some women writers, but they are still definitely underrepresented ... Read full review

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Page 160 - Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life ; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Page 352 - After all this it is surely superfluous to answer the question that has once been asked, whether Pope was a poet? otherwise than by asking in return, if Pope be not a poet, where is poetry to be found?
Page 157 - Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses ; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground •which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the...
Page 506 - tis all a cheat, Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit: Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Page 386 - Biron they call him; but a merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal : His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch, The other turns to a mirth-moving jest...
Page 152 - Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Page 318 - The King said in council, that the magistrates had not done their duty, but that he would do his own; and a proclamation was published, directing us to keep our servants within doors, as the peace was now to be preserved by force. The soldiers were sent out to different parts, and the town is now at quiet.
Page 235 - Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy*. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life ', nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.
Page 583 - So morbid was his temperament, that he never knew the natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs : when he walked, it was like the struggling gait of one in fetters ; when he rode, he had no command or direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon.
Page 583 - He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality ; both from a regard for the order of society and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order ; correct, nay stern in his taste ; hard to please, and easily offended...

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