Cheerfulness keeps breaking through the centuries!

[Goldin]

Everybody knows that "Cheerfulness Keeps Breaking Through"...
If you don't know, please read (and see), for example, the post by DrHGuy.

This phrase was heard from Cohen long before his 2008 comeback.
On "Speaking Cohen" one can find 3 interviews with mentions of such inflexible cheerfulness, all from 1992-1993.

JONSON & JOHNSON

Leonard Cohen and the Death of Cool by David Sprague
(Your Flesh, 1992)

When things get truly desperate, you start laughing...you experience what it really means to crack up...I remember what Ben Jonson said: "I've studied all the philosophies and all the theologies but cheerfulness keeps breaking through." (Laughs) I've read that as you approach middle age, the brain cells associated with anxiety start to die--so it doesn't matter whether you go to church every Sunday or do your yoga or whatever, you'll start to feel better about yourself.

The Joking Troubadour of Gloom by Tim Rostron
(The Daily Telegraph, April 26, 1993)

The troubadour of gloom continues: "I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I've always been free from hope. It's never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we're invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful." This graduate of McGill University adds: "I think that it was Ben Jonson who said, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through."

Maverick Spirit: Leonard Cohen by Jim O'Brien
(B-Side Magazine, August/September 1993)

"Remember what I say: 'Duck!'" Then, chuckling like one who's just cast his recently retrieved flowers back into the dust bin only to remember who he is, Leonard adds, "I don't know if you know that remark -- I think it was Samuel Johnson.
"He said, 'I've studied all the philosophies and all the theologies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through!'" We laugh, because it's probably true. Democracy is coming. Maybe.

I've searched the forum for all the Jo(h)nsons carefully, this topic wasn't discussed. So I believe, it will be interesting and new for most of Cohenites.

TO BE A PHILOSOPHER

"Life of Samuel Johnson" is a biography (more specifically, table talk) of Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784) written by James Boswell.
It contains, in compliance with the title, "a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons".

One of them was Edward Edwards, a Welsh scholar and clergyman, "an old fellow-collegian" of Jesus College, Oxford.

According to Boswell, it was 1778, when...

Edwards. "You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." - Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety.

Cheers

[MaryB]

Leonard Cohen and the Death of Cool by David Sprague
(Your Flesh, 1992)

When things get truly desperate, you start laughing...you experience what it really means to crack up...I remember what Ben Jonson said: "I've studied all the philosophies and all the theologies but cheerfulness keeps breaking through." (Laughs) I've read that as you approach middle age, the brain cells associated with anxiety start to die--so it doesn't matter whether you go to church every Sunday or do your yoga or whatever, you'll start to feel better about yourself.

Cheers

It would be hard to convince those of us, who were sitting in front of the computer when tickets were to go on sale for this past concert tour. I don't think too many were able to handle the situation calmly and without anxiety. Oh wait, maybe that's because I've progressed beyond middle age and my anxiety cells have regenerated

Best regards,
Mary

[Goldin]

A couple days ago Artur/Banalny uploaded the recording of the interview by Pete Fornatale (broadcast on 31 July 1988).
It contains the quote:

I've studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.

- attributed to Jonson (without mention of his name).

[hydriot]

How intriguing that Leonard muddled up Samuel Johnson, the father of the dictionary, with Ben Jonson, the Jacobian playwright (and rather unpleasant person). I can't imagine Jonson saying anything that witty.