Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Interpretation
Take time to observe the challenges faced by scholars instead of only focusing on gaining knowledge.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson urges individuals to step back from their relentless pursuit of knowledge and reflect on the struggles that come with scholarly life. He highlights the burdens of toil, envy, financial struggles, reliance on patrons, and the potential for imprisonment that can beset those who seek wisdom, suggesting that awareness of these challenges is crucial for a well-rounded understanding of life.
In practice
During a graduation speech, I shared this quote to encourage students to consider the challenges they may face in their careers.
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.
To be unafraid of the judgement of others is the greatest freedom you can have.
No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Life does not owe you anything, because life has already given you everything.
Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.
When the mind goes beyond the thought of 'the me,' the experiencer, the observer, the thinker, then there is a possibility of a happiness that is incorruptible.
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