When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it; you will dry it away. Be always busy.
Interpretation
When feeling down, avoid complaining and focus on staying busy to overcome negativity.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of managing one's negative feelings and not sharing them through complaints. Instead, he suggests that by keeping oneself occupied, one can effectively diminish those feelings of gloominess and eventually overcome them.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to encourage people to focus on productivity during tough times.
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.
For life: it is rather a determination not to be overwhelmed. For work: the truth can only be recalled, never invented.
I have learnt to be even more patient.
People don't really believe in words. Or rather, people believe in words only for a stretch of time. Then they start to look for action.
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.
When you are present, when your attention is fully in the Now, Presence will flow into and transform what you do. There will be a quality and power in it. You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do.
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
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