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Language is the dress of thought.
Samuel Johnson
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Language shapes our thoughts and how we express them.

In this quote, Samuel Johnson suggests that language serves as a garment for our thoughts, emphasizing that the way we articulate our ideas reflects their essence. Just as clothing can represent our identity and state of mind, language plays a crucial role in expressing and shaping our thoughts, implying that the quality and clarity of our communication can influence our understanding and interactions with the world around us.

Themes

LanguageThoughtCommunicationExpressionPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a speech about the importance of communication skills.

More from Samuel Johnson

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.
Samuel JohnsonRead
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Samuel JohnsonRead
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Samuel JohnsonRead

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