The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.
Interpretation
True friendship is based on mutual enjoyment and can fade when that pleasure is gone.
Samuel Johnson's quote reflects the idea that friendships among ordinary people often stem from shared enjoyment and mutual interests. When the joy derived from the relationship diminishes, so too can the bond, highlighting the transient nature of many friendships that rely on the capacity to delight and support one another.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of relationships, one might reference this quote to emphasize the need for shared joy in 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.
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.
It is sweet to think I was a companion in an expedition that never ends
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?
I always preferred to hang out with the outcasts, 'cause they were cooler; they had better taste in music, for one thing, I guess because they had more time to develop one with the lack of social interaction they had!
I don't know what I would do in the world without [female friends] for advice, for comfort, for simply knowing that there is someone out there who knows me as I am, and loves me despite and because of it.
You were the one who made things different, you were the one who took me in. You were the one thing I could count on, above all, you were my friend.
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