Affliction

 

It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity, alloyed and imperfect as it is, has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honours forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or to quiet, and how justly we may ascribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy or courage. Dr. Samuel Johnson.	19
When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped. Dr. Samuel Johnson.