These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes those who profit from war and suffering without contributing positively to society.
Samuel Johnson's quote reflects a deep disdain for individuals who gain wealth and power through unethical means, particularly in times of conflict. He highlights the absurdity of those who, from the comfort of their offices, calculate gains from destruction and suffering, showing a complete disregard for human life and virtues such as bravery and sacrifice. This serves as a moral observation on the consequences of selfish ambition and the disconnect between those who profit from war and those who bear its burdens.
In practice
During a discussion on the ethics of business practices during wartime, this quote could highlight moral issues.
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.
People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society.
The wounds of calumny, the reproaches of the proud, the venom of the bigoted, the treachery of the false, and the weakness of the true, we have known in our measure; and therein have had communion with our Lord Jesus.
There is no Master but the Master,” he said, “and QT-1 is his prophet.
The greatest dignity to be found in death is the dignity of the life that preceded it. This is a form of hope that we can all achieve, and it is the most abiding of all. Hope resides in the meaning of what our lives have been.
Tragedy is like strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.
Happy is the man who knows or even the man who remembers those silent vigils where silence itself was the sign of the communion of souls!
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