He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
Interpretation
Pursuing wealth or power can lead to a loss of integrity and bravery if one fails.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes the moral risks associated with the relentless pursuit of wealth and power. When an individual strives towards these goals but falls short, they may compromise their values, such as honesty and courage, to cope with their perceived failures, suggesting that the quest for such ambitions can corrupt one's character.
In practice
In a motivational speech about integrity in business practices.
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.
Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable.
The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!" When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.
There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.
I believe there is a reason such as autism, severe manic-depression, and schizophrenia remain in our gene pool even though there is much suffering as a result.
I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish.
Whiteness in a racist, corporate-controlled society is like having the image of an American Express Cardstamped on one's face: immediately you are “universally accepted.”
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