If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still
Interpretation
Being overly focused on death can prevent us from living our lives to the fullest.
This quote by Samuel Johnson suggests that an incessant preoccupation with death can hinder our ability to engage with and appreciate life. If we are constantly fixated on mortality, we risk stagnating in our growth, experiences, and pursuits, ultimately missing out on the rich opportunities that life presents. It serves as a reminder to find a balance between acknowledging the reality of death while not allowing it to overshadow our living experience.
In practice
A motivational speaker discussing the importance of living in the moment during a seminar.
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.
I finally knew... why Christ's prayer in the garden could not be granted. He had been seeded and birthed into human flesh. He was one of us. Once He had become mortal, He could not become immortal except by dying. That He prayed the prayer at all showed how human He was. That He knew it could not be granted showed his divinity; that He prayed it anyhow showed His mortality, His mortal love of life that His death made immortal.
Is not anyone with any degree of mental honesty conscious of telling lies all day long, both in talking and writing, simply because lies will fall into artistic shape when truth will not?
Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.
Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at all seasons, madam: that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals.
God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.
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