To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; and if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic

Essay (1753-11-27), The Adventurer, No. 111
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