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.
Interpretation
Neglecting friendships is unwise as it deprives us of valuable emotional support.
Samuel Johnson highlights the importance of nurturing friendships and warns against letting them fade due to negligence and silence. He views friendship as one of the greatest comforts in life's challenges, suggesting that actively maintaining these relationships is crucial for our emotional well-being and resilience.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of connections, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for maintaining friendships.
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.
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.
All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.
Hear no ill of a friend, nor speak any of an enemy.
You don't appreciate things until they're gone. For me, I miss my friends; I don't miss boxing, I miss the camaraderie.
I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men.
Make a man laugh a good hearty laugh, and you've paved the way for friendship. When a man laughs with you, he, to some extent, likes you.
In high seas or in low seas, I'm gonna be your friend... I'm gonna be your friend. In high tide or in low tide, I'll be by your side... I'll be by your side.
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