The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.
Interpretation
People often resist advice that they truly need while disregarding advice that is unhelpful.
Samuel Johnson highlights the paradox of human nature regarding advice. Individuals frequently dismiss critical suggestions, even if they are genuinely beneficial, while embracing opinions that may be less relevant or useful. This tendency reflects a deeper complexity in our relationships to knowledge and guidance, showcasing how pride or discomfort can override common sense.
In practice
In a discussion about seeking personal growth, this quote could be used to illustrate the importance of being open to constructive criticism.
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.
Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralized without being destroyed.
I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life - except in hope, which is by no means bankable.
I know, perhaps as well as anyone, what depression means, and what it is to feel myself sinking lower and lower. Yet at the worst, when I reach the lowest depths, I have an inward peace which no pain or depression can in the least disturb. Trusting in Jesus Christ my Savior, there is still a blessed quietness in the deep caverns of my soul.
Lose what? A man only has a soul to be won or lost; apart from his life, he has nothing. Past or future lives do not matter - at the moment you are living this one, and you should do so with silent comprehension, joy and enthusiasm. What you must not lose is your enthusiasm.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Highly proactive people don't blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice.
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