If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.
Interpretation
Agriculture is essential and holds a high value due to its direct impact on human survival and well-being.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of agriculture as a fundamental science that provides immediate benefits to society. He suggests that dignity and value should be measured by the utility of a discipline, and since agriculture is crucial for sustaining life and supporting communities, it deserves recognition as a noble pursuit.
In practice
In a speech about sustainable practices, one could quote Johnson to highlight the importance of agriculture.
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 is my supposition that the Universe in not only queerer than we imagine, is queerer than we can imagine.
Here I am at the turn of the millennium and I'm still the last man to have walked on the moon, somewhat disappointing. It says more about what we have not done than about what we have done.
Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, the framework of physics was this: If you tell me how things are now, I can then use the laws of physics to calculate, and hence predict, how things will be later.
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.
The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars.
When it comes to the things that people really want in science fiction - like space travel - the simplest things end up causing them not to happen. Humans are 100-pound bags of water, built to live on Earth.
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