Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Interpretation
People often allow external factors to shape their thoughts and beliefs.
Samuel Johnson's quote reflects the idea that many individuals do not think independently and are heavily influenced by their surroundings and the opinions of others. This suggests a lack of personal agency and a tendency to conform to societal norms or pressures rather than forming oneβs own opinions and ideas.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the effects of social media on individual thought.
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.
Everything that is not eternal is worthless in eternity.
For why should we not admire more the angels themselves and the blessed choirs of heaven?
If a Christian really believed that his neighbor will be tortured in all eternity in Hell, he should try day and night to persuade him to repent and believe. How sad that this doesn't happen.
Men and women will retain their sex in heaven
I was amazed by the fact that I was not the only writer living, not the only young man "with a locomotive in his chest, and that's a fact," not the only youth with a million hungers and not one of them appeasable, not the only one who is lonely among multitudes, and does not know why.
Who is there that can adequately gauge the greatness of the humility, gentleness, self-surrender, revealed by the Lord of majesty in assuming human nature, in accepting the punishment of death, the shame of the cross?
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