“I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.”
Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 3
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Samuel Johnson 362
English writer 1709–1784Related quotes

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)

Si je savais une chose utile à ma nation qui fût ruineuse à une autre, je ne la proposerais pas à mon prince, parce que je suis homme avant d’être Français, parce que je suis nécessairement homme, et que je ne suis Français que par hasard
I.
Pensées et Fragments Inédits de Montesquieu (1899)

Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. IX).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I can not express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being; so, don't talk of our separation again - it is impracticable.

On receiving the Order of Merit (1902)
Quoted in The Guardian, Wednesday 4 July 2012 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jul/04/eric-sykes