An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.
Interpretation
Time passes quietly and subtly, often unnoticed, leading us into a state of innocence as it fades.
This quote reflects on the imperceptible passage of time and how it leads to a gradual decay of life and experiences. Johnson suggests that this decay, while often unnoticed, can be accompanied by a certain modest innocence, indicating that the loss of time does not always bring regret but may allow for a peaceful acceptance of life's transience.
In practice
In a reflective speech about the passage of life during a memorial service.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Those who cannot renounce attachment to the results of their work are far from the path.
What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?
To rest the case for equal treatment of national or racial minorities on the assumption that they do not differ from other men is implicitly to admit that factual inequality would justify unequal treatment, and the proof that some differences do, in fact, exist would not be long in forthcoming. It is of the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different.
All joy... emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change.
The American grips himself, at the very sources of his consciousness, in a grip of care: and then, to so much of the rest of life, is indifferent. Whereas, the European hasn't got so much care in him, so he cares much more for life and living.
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