Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
Interpretation
Society reflects the collective choices of its individuals seeking the best possible quality of life.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson suggests that the quality and luxury of a society are determined by the choices and desires of its members. He implies that people will always strive to attain the highest standard of living available to them, indicating that luxury is relative and shaped by the social and economic conditions of the time.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about economic development to highlight how society's resources reflect individual aspirations.
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.
We live in worlds that we have forged and composed. It's much more true than any of the species that you see. I mean, it seems to me that one of the most distinctive features of human intelligence is the capacity to imagine, to project out of our own immediate circumstances and to bring to mind things that aren't present here and now.
When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts ... Who knows what use they’ll make of you? Maybe you’ll help them to persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them.
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weaknesses.
While football embarrassingly exposes the excesses of capitalism, the Olympic sports have been used to propagate the neoliberal mantra that success is simply a matter of hard work.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It don't matter if you believe in God Nick, he believes in you.
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