Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Interpretation
Life is a journey of seeking desires rather than simply experiencing pleasure.
This quote by Samuel Johnson highlights the idea that human existence is characterized more by the pursuit of wants and desires than by the moments of enjoyment that may accompany the fulfillment of those wants. It suggests that life consists of a continuous striving for new goals and aspirations, indicating that the process of wanting is an inherent part of the human experience.
In practice
In a motivational speech discussing the importance of setting goals.
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.
Man cannot live by bread alone. Man after all is composed of intellect and soul.
At the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: I will not give up my right to myself--the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Deep down, there is in the substance of the cosmos a primordial disposition, sui generis, for self-arrangement and self-involution.
Life is like an eternal dance. The movements of the dance are choreographed through your awareness.
What a child does not know and does not want to know of race and color and class, he learns soon enough as he grows to see each man flipped inexorably into some predestined groove like a penny or a sovereign in a banker's rack.
I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
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