Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Interpretation
Distance alters our perspective, both physically and mentally.
This quote by Samuel Johnson suggests that the concept of distance influences our perceptions and thoughts, much like how it affects our vision. Just as physical distance can change how we see an object, emotional or intellectual distance can impact our understanding and feelings about people and situations, potentially leading us to view them in a new light or with less clarity.
In practice
During a speech on relationships, you could use this quote to illustrate how physical distance can impact emotional connections.
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.
Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.
To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.
Order and reason, beauty and benevolence, are characteristics and conceptions which we find solely associated with the mind of man.
We put this 15-year old girl on the cover of a fashion magazine, and tell everyone she is the epitome of sexual perfection, but we jail anyone who touches her for another three years.
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement.
There are forces in nature called Love and Hate. The force of Love causes elements to be attracted to each other and to be built up into some particular form or person, and the force of Hate causes the decomposition of things.
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