Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Interpretation
Dictionaries, like watches, have varying qualities, but some form is better than none.
Samuel Johnson's quote compares dictionaries to watches, suggesting that while the best dictionaries are not perfect, having a dictionary—albeit imperfect—is far better than having none at all. This highlights the value of knowledge and reference tools in education, stressing that even flawed resources can aid in understanding and learning.
In practice
Using this quote in a lecture about the importance of reference materials.
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.
It's not who you're going to sit beside at school that matters now: it's what resources will your school have.
I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.
I believe we owe our young an education that captures the exhilarating drama of science.
When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.
The American high school graduate is two years behind his English, French or German counterpart; in Alabama, God knows how far behind.
The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.
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