That we must all die, we always knew, I wish I had sooner remembred it.
Interpretation
The inevitability of death is something we are aware of, yet it often escapes our thoughts until it's too late.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson reflects on the universal truth of mortality and expresses a wish that he had acknowledged this truth earlier in life. The realization of our finite existence influences how we choose to live and appreciate the time we have, prompting an awareness that could lead to more meaningful actions and choices.
In practice
In a reflective conversation about life choices and regrets during a gathering with friends.
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.
She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.
Calmness is the living breath of God's immortality in you.
We adore chaos because we love to produce order.
I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood.
The quality of life is more important than life itself.
Everything that has form, everything that is the result of combination, is evolved out of this Akasha.
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