Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
Interpretation
The quest for truth can be unsatisfying for those seeking only easy answers, leading them to pursue falsehoods instead.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson uses a metaphor of milk production to illustrate how those who cannot accept the hard truths of life may abandon genuine inquiry for more appealing falsehoods. The cow represents truth that no longer provides the satisfaction or 'milk' that people desire, prompting them to pursue more enticing but misleading alternatives, as symbolized by milking the bull.
In practice
In a debate about morality, this quote could highlight the importance of facing difficult truths rather than settling for comfortable lies.
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.
To work for the common good is the greatest creed.
Spaniards were condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the absence of U.N. authorization - that is, for taking a stand rather like that of 70 percent of Americans, who called for the U.N. to take the leading role in Iraq.
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing
We're going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.
In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
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