Samuel Johnson

A Personality in Conflict

0196476321
George Irwin

Notes

…the knowledge of books will never do without looking on life likewise with an observant eye.

…in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert. The end sought in both is, forgetfulness of ourselves.

To have someone who wanted him, admired him, flattered him, listened with bewitching interest to everything he had to say pleased Johnson enormously. Urged on by a friendly curiosity, which Johnson was not willing to gratify, Mrs Thrale encouraged him to talk about himself. She could not, had she been an analyst, have done more to create the permissive atmosphere in which a patient feels sufficiently released from his customary self-defensive tensions to talk freely about himself.