There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature's hand the nectar of oblivion.
Interpretation
Human experiences of pleasure and suffering are universal, transcending social status.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson suggests that regardless of social distinctions, all humans share a common desire to escape either the burdens of daily life or the weight of fame. He implies that both the powerful and the powerless long for relief from their respective pleasures and cares, indicating that the human experience, in its essence, is unified in its quest for peace and oblivion from life's challenges.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the commonalities of the human experience.
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.
Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed.
To make someone an icon is to make him an abstraction, and abstractions are incapable of vital communication with living people.
Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.
They call him Aslan in That Place," said Eustace. "What a curious name!" "Not half so curious as himself," said Eustace solemnly.
The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.
[God] is perfect not only insofar as He is absolute perfection, defining perfection in Himself and from His singular existence and total perfection, but also because He is far beyond being so. He sets a boundary to the boundless and in His total unity He rises above all limitation. He is neither contained nor comprehended by anything. He reaches out to everything and beyond everything and does so with unfailing generosity and unstinted activity.
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