Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation.
Interpretation
Memory is essential for all other forms of intelligence and understanding.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of memory as the foundational element of intelligence. Without memory, our capacity to think, comprehend, and engage in any intellectual activity would be severely compromised, suggesting that our experiences and knowledge are rooted in the ability to remember.
In practice
In a lecture on cognitive psychology, you could use this quote to discuss the role of memory in learning.
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.
The power of the world always works in circles.
[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.
You should aim to be independent of any one vote, of any one fashion, of any one century.
To plunder, to lie, to show your arse, are three essentials for climbing high.
Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.
The great home of the soul is the open road.
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