The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Interpretation
A person's character is revealed by how they treat those who cannot benefit them.
This quote by Samuel Johnson suggests that the essence of a person's character is defined by their treatment of others, especially those who are powerless or incapable of providing any advantage in return. It emphasizes the importance of kindness, integrity, and the moral obligation to treat all individuals with respect and compassion, regardless of their status or what they can offer us in terms of benefit or gain.
In practice
In a speech about community service, I might say, 'Remember, the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.'
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.
Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Though the eye is small, the soul which sees through it is greater and vaster than all the things which it perceives. In fact, it is so great that it includes all objects, however large or numerous, within itself. For it is not so much that you are within the cosmos as that the cosmos is within you.
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.
I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts.
Between the desire And the spasm, Between the potency And the existence, Between the essence And the descent, Falls the Shadow.
How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?
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