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.
What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities.
My father prayed because he had a good friend with whom to share the problems of the day.
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.
An enemy to whom you show kindness becomes your friend, excepting lust, the indulgence of which increases its enmity.
Prosperity is full of friends.
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