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.
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It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn't know - and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.
I don't let go of concepts -I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.
There are few things more powerful than a life lived with passionate clarity.
Just because something didn't work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.
He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face. - Ben Franklin
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