Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Interpretation
Hope is essential for happiness, even if it is often disappointing.
Samuel Johnson emphasizes the importance of hope in our lives. He argues that while hope may sometimes lead to disappointment, it is far better to have hope than to lack it entirely, as hope brings happiness and serves as a motivator in difficult times.
In practice
You might quote this during a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
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.
The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.
I'm having the time of my life and the fact that I'm still working - how lucky can you get? I'm 90 years old and still able to work as much as I do. That's a privilege.
I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.'
It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
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