Editing The Anatomy of Melancholy (section)

=== Samuel Johnson ===
{{Quote box
| quote = "If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle," one of Johnson's most famous quotes, is adapted from <i>Anatomy</i>. The full quote reads: "The great direction Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this, Be not solitary; be not idle: which I would thus modify; – If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle."
| author = 
| align = right
| width = 50%
}}
Writer [[Samuel Johnson]] called ''Anatomy'' "a valuable work," saying "there is a great spirit and great power in what Burton says."<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=Beveridge |first=Allan |date=September 2013 |title=Talking about madness and melancholy: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/talking-about-madness-and-melancholy-boswells-life-of-samuel-johnson/08DCB582472A7D4E6482DC444D6E4DBC |journal=Advances in Psychiatric Treatment |language=en |volume=19 |issue=5 |pages=392–398 |doi=10.1192/apt.bp.112.010702 |issn=1355-5146}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Dunea |first1=G. |year=2007 |title=The Anatomy of Melancholy |journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal |volume=335 |issue=7615 |pages=351.2–351 |doi=10.1136/bmj.39301.684363.59 |pmc=1949452}}</ref> Johnson suffered from bouts of "horrible melancholia" and at one point "strongly entertained thoughts of suicide" according to his biographer [[James Boswell]].<ref>[[Walter Jackson Bate|Bate, Walter Jackson]] (1977), ''Samuel Johnson'', New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, {{ISBN|978-0-15-179260-3}}</ref> Like many of his contemporaries, he believed that writers such as himself were especially predisposed to melancholy.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Melancholy, Genius, and Utopia in the Renaissance. - Free Online Library |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Melancholy,+Genius,+and+Utopia+in+the+Renaissance.-a015674136 |access-date=2025-05-01 |website=www.thefreelibrary.com}}</ref> Most of his attempted remedies for his own depression came from treatments prescribed by ''The Anatomy of Melancholy''. Chief among these was "constant occupation of mind"; Johnson found that staying busy helped ward off melancholy, which was a significant reason his writing was so prolific.<ref name=":6" /> He described ''Anatomy'' as "the only book that ever got him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise."<ref>{{cite book |last=Boswell |first=James |author-link=James Boswell |title=[[The Life of Samuel Johnson]] |publisher=[[Everyman's Library]] |page=390}}</ref>