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.
He accused me of being Dumbledore's man through and through." "How very rude of him." "I told him I was." Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry's intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore's bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knee. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady. "I am very touched, Harry.
Winning friends begins with friendliness.
If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men.
Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.
Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives.
We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.