Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence equally attentive to every misery.
Interpretation
True friendship helps to address personal grievances that might otherwise go unnoticed.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of friendship in recognizing and remedying the personal troubles of individuals. While many grievances may be overlooked in the grand scope of human suffering, a friend’s concern can bring attention to these issues and provide the support needed to alleviate them, highlighting the unique role friendship plays in our emotional well-being.
In practice
During a speech about the value of community in support networks.
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.
Two of man's basic needs are to love and to share. Both of these needs are satisfied in greater or lesser degree by friendship.
When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn't come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chili he'd made and a note that said, 'John, I'd love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.'
One Best Book is Equal To Hundred Good Friends But One Good Friend is Equal To A Library.
You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and I am yours.
Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
I'd rather trust nine people and have the 10th one stab me in the back. I'd take that fall in order to have those nine friendships or working relationships instead of having none. That's not living.
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