'On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm[106], there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, "Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its Creator[107]?" To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that—in the first place—the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.'
'Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its
CREATOR[108].'
'Depend upon it, said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it[109].'
'A man must be a poor beast that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.'
'Imlac in Rasselas, I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c[110].'
'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived[111]: for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually[112]—had the madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.'
'He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first Book of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand was the first instance of the kind that was known.'
'Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome[113]: for instance,—if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.'
'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he was within hearing.'