In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported without the help of a partner.
 Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759). copy citation

Context

“The daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the other. “Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures, life may be well enough supported without the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection; one advantage at least will be certain, the parents will be visibly older than their children.”” source