Enlarge my life with multitude of days, In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexities of life and the human tendency to ignore its challenges while seeking joy.
Samuel Johnson's quote emphasizes the duality of life, where the desire for more days can lead to an increase in suffering as well. It highlights the inevitability of time and how, rather than bringing joy, a prolonged life often becomes a burden. The speaker recognizes a struggle between the pursuit of happiness and the reality of pain, suggesting that ignoring one's true state can prevent a genuine appreciation of life’s moments.
In practice
During a speech about the value of time and life, this quote can emphasize the importance of living fully even amidst challenges.
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.
I'm never gonna die, never heard of death, energy can never be destroyed only the flesh, so when you try to murder me with bullets to the head this is why you can't kill me niggaz, I'm already dead.
They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.
After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir.
If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come back empty-handed. The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.
Though dreams can be deceiving; like faces are to hearts, they serve for sweet relieving, when fantasy and reality lie too far apart.
I sometimes think that I enjoy suffering. But the truth is I would prefer something else.
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