Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Interpretation
Distance alters our perspective, both physically and mentally.
This quote by Samuel Johnson suggests that the concept of distance influences our perceptions and thoughts, much like how it affects our vision. Just as physical distance can change how we see an object, emotional or intellectual distance can impact our understanding and feelings about people and situations, potentially leading us to view them in a new light or with less clarity.
In practice
During a speech on relationships, you could use this quote to illustrate how physical distance can impact emotional connections.
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.
Thus the right of nullification meant by Mr. Jefferson is the natural right, which all admit to be a remedy against insupportable oppression.
One day I visited a guy who had made a fortune as a broker. He was sitting in his office with his computer. I hire people from here and make deals from this room, he told me. Then he took me to the trading room. Nobody was talking to anybody else, the place was silent as a tomb, they were all sitting there watching their terminals - a great word, terminal. I tell you, it scares the crap out of me.
To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been.
With sadness specifically, in America you read about people medicating to avoid sadness. They don't want to experience sadness, and yet it's such a vital part of being human.
Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.
God is not something I think about but something I experience as an energy, a Presence. I do find it easier to pray to a female Presence or an androgynous Presence.
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