Author: Dr. Johnson

Cited by

• Harlan Ellison (1)
  • IN: Shatterday (1980) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses.
    FROM: The Rambler #126, (1751), Essay, UK
• Andrew Taylor (1)
  • IN: The Anatomy Of Ghosts (None) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.
    FROM: Boswell’s Life of Johnson, (1778), Book, UK
• Richard Adams (1)
  • IN: The Plague Dogs (1977) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments as have been published in later times, by a race of men that have practised tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings.
    FROM: The Plays of William Shakespeare, (1765), Book, UK