What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
Interpretation
It's wiser to ignore insults, as folly doesn't merit anger, and malicious intent is best dealt with by ignoring it.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the virtue of overlooking insults and not responding with resentment. He suggests that reacting to foolishness with anger fuels unnecessary conflict, while neglecting malice deprives it of the attention it seeks, effectively diminishing its power over us.
In practice
In a workplace setting, when a colleague makes a snide remark, one might reflect on this quote to avoid escalating the conflict.
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.
Order my footsteps by Thy Word and make my heart sincere; let sin have no dominion, Lord, but keep my conscience clear.
When you're being asked to think about the meaning of your intuitions before you act on them, maybe along the way you decide your intuitions are destructive or make no sense at all. And then you don't act on them.
It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting.
You should not buy a stock because it's cheap but because you know a lot about it.
It is a virtue to admit ignorance when you don't know, but not to wallow in ignorance as an end in itself._x000D_ _x000D_ People say if we don't believe god is watching over us, we abandon morality. Are they right?
Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live.
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