We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Interpretation
Happiness often seems elusive, leading individuals to believe that others possess it while they do not.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson reflects on the common human experience of searching for happiness. He suggests that people often feel convinced that true happiness is unattainable and is merely a possession of others, which paradoxically fuels their desire and hope to attain it for themselves.
In practice
You could use this quote in a motivational speech about finding personal happiness.
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.
Be cheerful in all that you do. Live joyfully. Live happily. Live enthusiastically, knowing that God does not dwell in gloom and melancholy, but in light and love.
I've taken my fun where I've found it.
To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the effort of seeing whether by following it you can find greater happiness.
Money will not make you happy, and happy will not make you money.
I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.
Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
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