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.
No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.
I listened more than I studied... therefore little by little my knowledge and ability were developed.
Communication of science as subject-matter has so far outrun in education the construction of a scientific habit of mind that to some extent the natural common sense of mankind has been interfered with to its detriment.
My message was 'Think African. Make schools read African history.'
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
A child must learn early to believe that she is somebody worthwhile, and that she can do many praiseworthy things.
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