
Introduction, p. 4
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)
Usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che nasconda l'arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi.
Bk. 1, ch. 26; p. 35.
Souced, Il Libro del Cortegiano (1528)
Usar in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che nasconda l'arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi.
Souced, Il Libro del Cortegiano (1528)
Introduction, p. 4
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)
On Johann Strauss, page 77. Originally written in 1925.
Recollections and Reflections
Source: 1970s, Meditations (1979), p. 105
Context: Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy. They are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life. Quite a different approach is necessary, not the path of habit, association and the known; there must be freedom from these. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness.
“But Caesar, headlong in all his designs,
thought nothing done while anything remained to do.”
Sed Caesar in omnia praeceps,<br/>nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum.
Sed Caesar in omnia praeceps,
nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum.
Book II, line 656 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“Almost everything that we do that is worth doing is done in the first place in the mind's eye.”
"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)
“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”
First attributed to Johnson 15 years posthumously in a footnote in William Seward's Biographiana (1799), but written in slightly different form in 1764, in a profile in The Scots Magazine of Charles Churchill. The Scots Magazine, Volume 26 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y14AAAAAYAAJ&q=%22without+effort%22&redir_esc=y&hl=en#v=snippet&q=%22without%20effort%22&f=false
Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/08/without-effort/, retrieved 17 May 2016
Misattributed
Source: Johnsonian Miscellanies - Vol II
“Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.”
“Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.”
Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther (King's namesake)
Misattributed