If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Interpretation
Determination and perseverance, rather than strength, lead to great accomplishments.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson highlights the importance of determination and hard work in achieving success. He suggests that even when faced with challenges, one should not lose hope because with diligence and skill, most things are attainable. The essence of great achievements lies not in mere physical strength, but in the relentless pursuit and perseverance over time.
In practice
In a motivational speech to inspire students facing exams.
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.
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
Once the Choice is Made, Do Not Look Back, Do Not Second-Guess Your Decisions
Throughout my life, I was always the youngest to do things, which added hype that I didn't want. It added this pressure that I needed to do well fast.
Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.
When people exercise, we talk about endorphins, but endorphins are just short-term. The reason why exercise is valuable is it trains your brain to believe, 'My behavior matters,' which is optimism.
Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it--turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.
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