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.
Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.
Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.
We're all just bags of bones and muscle and hormones; I'll never understand what makes our minds do the things we do. It's like that statue of the monkey holding a skull. We're trying to use a thing we don't understand to understand ourselves.
Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.
A society based on the freedom to choose is better than a society based on the principles of socialism, communism and coercion.
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