Clergyman's

After hearing incessantly that the people follow him without sense or discretion, he is liable to fall a victim of the delusion which he has created, and to imagine that he possesses some personal attraction, by virtue of which he is followed. The delusion soon develops itself. He will diverge from the authorized track... From habit, the people will move a little in his erratic course. Their compliance augments his delusion, and he will become increasingly regardless of the popular will, and more obstinately intent on his own. He soon becomes monomaniac, and is abandoned except by a few stragglers as crazy as himself; while he interprets the abandonment into ingratitude or heterodoxy, and grows scurrilous, turbulent, and impotent.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

No contrast is greater than a man on the pinnacle, erect in stature, confident, supercilious; and the same man in the pit, bent, irresolute, and servile. Some observers insist that, in the pit, a man usually loses his moral principles; but, on the pinnacle, is virtuously inclined, sensitive of reputation, faithful of trusts.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

No contrast is greater than a man on the pinnacle, erect in stature, confident, supercilious; and the same man in the pit, bent, irresolute, and servile. Some observers insist that, in the pit, a man usually loses his moral principles; but, on the pinnacle, is virtuously inclined, sensitive of reputation, faithful of trusts.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

The confectionary was useful enough to make its destruction eminently foolish; and fools were numerous enough to make its destruction eminently popular. Thus reasoned the emperor.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

As... the following sheets are the painful elaboration of many years, when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd, I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention: as on an escutcheon, when a figure resembles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird which is most creditable to the bearer, shall be deemed to be the one intended by the blazon.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit, annoying all persons who are forced, by friendship or consanguinity, to consort with the unfortunate maniacs. To remain permanently either on the pinnacle or in the abyss is deemed a species of the same disorder, though not so common.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

A young lady, being on a visit at a noble friend's mansion, was betrayed by complaisance into an admission that she was very fond of potted sprats, though she abhorred the sight, taste, and smell of them. This little falsehood brought her into a false position as respects her noble friend, who, to oblige her young guest, provided for her nothing but potted sprats. ...So the aforesaid young lady found herself suddenly seated beside a plate of sprats, with all their disgusting odours rising to her face, and their horrid forms spread out before her eyes. A moment ago, she might, with entire propriety, have declared her disgust of them; but she had taken her false position, and that was now to govern. ...But here the authority ended of all external government. The chyle would not digest the intruder, nor the pylorus permit its egress The whole inner woman suffered a state of rebellion; when a new actor appeared upon the stage... in the shape of fever, first mild and gentle, then importunate and bold, then raging, and then outrageous. The fever introduced, in turn, a new agent in the shape of a physician, grave and knowing; who introduced two others more knowing still, who introduced various cathartics, diaphoretics, lancets, leeches, blisters, and glysters, which together soon introduced debility, epilepsy, and catalepsy; which, to the astonishment of no one but the doctors, introduced death, who ended the false position.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority... all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority... all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson

We need not wade into the current of Niagara Falls unless we please; but, after we have waded in we must thereafter be governed by the course and force of the stream.
- Alexander Bryan Johnson