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.
Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind
How one walks through the world, the endless small adjustments of balance, is affected by the shifting weights of beautiful things.
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.
Itβs no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,β she muttered.
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
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