When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
Interpretation
Civility is crucial for maintaining kindness and decency in interactions with others. Violating social norms can lead to a breakdown of these virtues.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of civility in human interactions. When civility is disregarded, it erodes the foundation for kindness and decency, creating an atmosphere where such values are difficult to restore. It serves as a cautionary reminder that our behaviors shape the social fabric, and once respect is lost, it is challenging to regain a sense of harmony and goodwill among individuals.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about social media etiquette to emphasize the importance of respectful interactions.
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 tell stories to talk out the trouble in our lives, trouble otherwise so often so unspeakable. It is one of our main ways of making our lives sensible. Trying to live without stories can make us crazy. They help us recognize what we believe to be most valuable in the world, and help us identify what we hold demonic.
If at any time all labour should cease, and all existing provisions be equally divided among the people, at the end of a single year there could scarcely be one human being left alive--all would have perished by want of subsistence.
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
As I look back over the truly crucial events in my life I realize that they were not planned long in advance. Albert Einstein said, 'There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.'
I think books with spiritual themes simply point to the deeper mysteries of life - to what lies beyond us, to what's hidden inside of us, or perhaps to an understanding of what truly matters.
Integrity, the choice between what's convenient and what's right.
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