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He that neglects his known duty, and real employment, naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do, with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour. Idler, vol. 1, p. 1, 172.

Perhaps every man may date the predominance of those desires that disturb his life, and contaminate his conscience, from some unhappy hour when too much leisure exposed him to their incursions; for he has lived with little observation, either on himself or others, who does not know that to be idle is to be vicious.

Rambler, vol. 2, p. 181.

There are said to be pleasures in madness known only to madmen. There are certainly miseries in idleness, which the idler can only

conceive.

Idler, vol. 1, p. 15.

Of all the enemies of idleness, want is the most formidable. Fame is soon found to be a sound, and love a dream. Avarice and ambition may be justly suspected of being privy confederates with idleness; for when they have, for a while, protected their votaries, they often deliver them up, to end their lives under her dominion. Want always struggles against idleness; but want herself is often overcome, and every hour shows the careful observer those who had rather live in ease than in plenty. Ibid. p. 51.

No man is so much open to conviction as the idler; but there is none on whom it operates so little.

Ibid. p. 175.
The

The drunkard, for a time, laughs over his wine; the ambitious man triumphs in the miscarriage of his rival; but the captives of indolence have neither superiority nor merriment.

Vifion of Theodore, p. 94.

It is not only in the slumber of sloth, but in the dissipation of ill-directed industry, that the shortness of life is generally forgotten. As some men lose their hours in laziness, because they suppose there is time for the reparation of neglect, others busy themselves in providing that no length of life may want employment; and it often happens, that sluggishness and activity are equally surprised by the last summons, and perish not more differently from each other, than the fowl that received the shot in her flight, from her that is killed upon the bush.

Rambler, vol. 2, p. 99.

Idleness can never secure tranquillity; the call of reason and of conscience will pierce the closest pavilion of the sluggard, and though it may not have force to drive him from his down, will be loud enough to hinder him from sleep. Those moments which he cannot resolve to make useful, by devoting them to the great business of his being, will still be usurped by powers that will not leave them to his disposal; remorse and vexation will seize upon them, and forbid him to enjoy what he is so desirous to appropriate

Ibid. vol. 3, p. 172.

Those who attempt nothing themselves, think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.

Idler, vol. 1, p. 5

The

The diligence of an idler is sometimes rapid and impetuous; as ponderous bodies, forced into velocity, move with violence proportionate to their weight.

Ibid.

There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity; who call themselves the idle, as Busiris in the play, calls himself the proud; who boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun, but to tell him how they hate his beams; whose whole labour is to vary the postures of indulgence; and whose day differs from their night, but as a couch, or chair, differs from a bed.

Ibid. p. 171.

Idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected; for, being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others, and is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers property, or like pride, which naturally seeks its gratifications in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it.

INTEGRITY.

Ibid. p. 172.

Integrity without knowledge, is weak, and generally useless; and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Prince of Abyssinia, p. 249.

IGNORANCE.

IGNORANCE.

The man who feels himself ignorant, should at least be modest.

Preliminary Difcourse to the London Chronicle, p. 156.

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Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present. Notes upon Shakespeare, vol. 6, p. 101.

Gross ignorance every man has found equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men left wholly to their appetites and their instincts, with, little sense of moral or religious obligation, and with very faint distinctions of right and wrong, can never be safely employed, or confidently trusted. They can be honest only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some instruction, therefore, is necessary; and much, perhaps, may be dangerous.

Review of the Origin of Evil, p. II.

Ignorance is most easily kept in subjection: by enlightening the mind, with truth, fraud and usurpation would be made less practicable and less secure.

Introduction to the World Displayed, p. 180.

IGNORANCE,

(Compared with Knowledge) ·

The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand, by design, what they think impossible to be done.

Preface to Shakspeare, p. 68.

IGNORANCE.

IGNORANCE,

(Compared with Confidence.)

In things difficult there is danger from ignorance; in things easy, from confidence.

Preface to Dictionary, fol. p. 9.

IMPRUDENCE.

Those who, in consequence of superior capacities and attainments, disregard the common maxims of life, ought to be reminded, that nothing will supply the want of prudence; and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible. Life of Savage.

IMPRISONMENT,

Few are mended by imprisonment; and he whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do with greater cunning, what he did before with less.

Falfe Aların, p. 8.

The end of all civil regulations is to secure private happiness from private malignity, to keep individuals from the power of one another. But this end is apparently neglected by imprisonment for debt, when a man, irritated with loss, is allowed to be a judge of his own cause, and to assign the punishment of his own pain; when the distinction between guilt and unhappiness, between casualty and design, is entrusted to eyes blind with interest, to understandings depraved by resentment.

Idler, vol. 2, p. 122.

In a prison the awe of the pulic the power of the law is spent.

M

eye is lost, and There are few fears,

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