rambler

Selección de los primeros 69 ensayos (volumen 1) de Yale University Press.

Ensayo 1: ✔️✔️

No al tope de la lista, y quizá tenga un check de más. Pero siendo el primer ensayo de The Rambler y lo primero que he leído de Johnson, se siente la pegada de su estilo contundente. Parecido a lo que sintió Vanderlei Silva la primera vez que enfrentó a Cro Cop. Esa primera patada recibida te pone en DEFCON 1.

it may be proper for all to remember, that they ought not to raise expectation which it is not in their power to satisfy, and that it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke. (Location 163)

and if I am not commended for the beauty of my works, to be at least pardoned for their brevity.

Ensayo 2: ✔️

Primer tratado sobre the pettiness of the human condition.

this caution against keeping our view too intent upon remote advantages is not without its propriety or usefulness, though it may have been recited with too much levity, or enforced with too little distinction; (Location 244)

When we pity him, we reflect on our own disappointments; and when we laugh, our hearts inform us that he is not more ridiculous than ourselves, except that he tells what we have only thought. (Location 254)

Ensayo 4: ✔️✔️✔️

Sobre cierta responsabilidad moral de los escritores, pero a un nivel más abstraído, la responsabilidad de apuntar hacia la virtud. Parecido a la Sócrates y la necesidad de orientarse hacia la búsqueda de la verdad.

These books are written chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion and partial account.

It is therefore to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness; and that vice is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts; that it begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy.

Ensayo 5: ✔️

To live “the examined life”

and, therefore, the younger part of my readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal speculation, must excuse me for calling upon them, to make use at once of the spring of the year, and the spring of life; to acquire, while their minds may be yet impressed with new images, a love of innocent pleasures, and an ardour for useful knowledge; and to remember, that a blighted spring makes a barren year, and that the vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended by nature as preparatives to autumnal fruits

Ensayo 6: ✔️✔

Probablemente Kavafis leyó esto antes de escribir The City.

the fountain of content must spring up in the mind: and that he who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.

Ensayo 7: ✔✔✔

Este es un ensayo magistral. Lectura obligatoria para todo ser humano menor de 30 años (i.e., si no se han desarrollado cierta búsqueda de la virtud antes de concluir la tercera década, mejor es leer Remains of the Day de Ishiguro)

When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner? he was answered, that there was no royal way to geometry. Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement. (Location 584)

for the motions of sense are instantaneous, its objects strike unsought, we are accustomed to follow its directions, and therefore often submit to the sentence without examining the authority of the judge.