What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s
Interpretation
Protesting against flattery can sometimes overlook the positivity in compliments.
Samuel Johnson highlights the complexity of our reactions to praise and flattery. He suggests that when someone speaks well of us, we have a choice to either accept the truth of their praise and rejoice in it or recognize that if the praise is false, it reflects the other person's desire to please us rather than their genuine opinion. Essentially, we should focus on the motivations behind kind words and the benefits they may bring, rather than defensively rejecting them.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech on the importance of accepting compliments graciously.
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.
We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.
Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.
If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.
If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.
The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are the necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?'
When I hear other people's stories, I like to believe that they contribute to my 'Encyclopedia of Human Experience.' The stories I hear help me expand my definition of what love is, what pain feels like, what sacrifice means, what laughter can do.
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