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.
Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take to find dignity.
A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
There haven't been enough profound things written about what being black means and what a black character is. Nobody knows.
How can a speck of a universe be physically identical to the great expanse we view in the heavens above?
A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.
I used to think consciousness itself was a virtue, so I tried to keep it all in my head at the same time: past, future, etc.
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