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.
Interpretation
Neglecting friendships is unwise as it deprives us of valuable emotional support.
Samuel Johnson highlights the importance of nurturing friendships and warns against letting them fade due to negligence and silence. He views friendship as one of the greatest comforts in life's challenges, suggesting that actively maintaining these relationships is crucial for our emotional well-being and resilience.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of connections, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for maintaining friendships.
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.
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.
All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.
We often talk too much & listen too little. The surer route to winning a friend isn't to convince them that you're right, but that you care what they think.
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
I'd rather have two good friends, than 500,000 admirers.
And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that your should seek with him hours to kill? Seek with him always hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter, and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
One of the brightest lights of our time-a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.
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