Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
Interpretation
Life is often filled with struggles and unfulfilled expectations.
This quote by Samuel Johnson highlights the inherent nature of human existence, suggesting that from the moment we are born, we encounter challenges and dissatisfaction. It reflects a pessimistic view of life, where the initial cries of an infant symbolize suffering, the complaints of adults mirror ongoing struggles, and the eventual disappointment at the end of life underscores the inevitability of unmet desires and aspirations.
In practice
In a thought-provoking lecture on the human condition, this quote could serve to transition into a discussion about life's 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.
If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.
The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth.
Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.
My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.
Nobody at any time is cut off from God.
Insomnia is an all-night travel agency with posters advertising faraway places.
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