That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.
Interpretation
Distrust and suspicion can lead to unnecessary sadness, and it's wise to avoid indulging in them.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson suggests that harboring distrust not only detracts from our happiness but is also a misuse of our mental capacities. He emphasizes that suspicion can cause unnecessary suffering and that a wise person's duty is to maintain their faculties for more constructive purposes, making indulgence in such negative feelings both foolish and potentially harmful.
In practice
This quote can be used in a psychology seminar discussing the impact of negative emotions.
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 man who doesn’t make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life.
I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. "Don't complain about growing old - many, many people do not have that privilege."
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
I have great faith in fools,— self-confidence my friends will call it.
Maybe a thing that you do not like is really in your interest. It is possible that a thing that you may desire may be against your interest.
Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.
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