Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
Interpretation
Exercise can enhance the quality of life, but it cannot prevent death; rather, it helps us face mortality more gracefully.
Samuel Johnson reflects on the inevitability of death, suggesting that while exercise and a disciplined life cannot save us from our fate, they can make the journey more pleasant. He implies that accepting our mortality and striving for a fulfilling life are crucial to dying without regret and suffering, as it is often our fears and anxieties that lead to torment in the face of death.
In practice
During a health seminar, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of maintaining a good quality of life even when considering our mortality.
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.
The sciences are the 'how,' and the humanities are the 'why' - why are we here, why do we believe in the things we believe in. I don't think you can have the 'how' without the 'why.'
Principles are only tools in the hands of God; they will soon be thrown away when they are no longer useful.
Does that mean we should give up? Probably. But there are two issues worth considering. The first is - is it really true that drugs destroy the integrity of the game?
Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what tomorrow has in store?
We experience life as a continuity, and only after it falls away, after it becomes the past, do we see its discontinuities. The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float.
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
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