Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
Interpretation
Just because someone has power doesn't mean they are right.
This quote by Samuel Johnson suggests that authority or power does not inherently validate a person's beliefs or assertions. It serves as a warning against accepting claims or ideas solely based on the status of the individual presenting them, emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and discernment in evaluating the truth.
In practice
In a debate on ethics, one might use this quote to emphasize that moral positions should not be based on someone's power.
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.
Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is harmony in the house; when there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.
You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.
There is no shortcut to holiness; it must be the business of our whole lives.
No one should ever know where conduct ends and acting begins. Conduct unbecoming. That's what acting is.
All concord's born of contraries.
Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.
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