There is little peace or comfort in life if we are always anxious as to future events. He that worries himself with the dread of possible contingencies will never be at rest.
Interpretation
Worrying about the future prevents us from finding peace in the present.
This quote by Samuel Johnson emphasizes that a constant preoccupation with future uncertainties creates anxiety and disrupts one's peace of mind. He suggests that those who dwell on potential problems or outcomes will find it challenging to experience true rest and comfort in their lives, as anxiety over what may come keeps them in a state of unrest.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote to encourage an audience to focus on the present rather than worry about what might happen later.
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.
Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.
Hey, look at this!" He holds up a glistening, perfect pearl about the size of a pea. "You know, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls," he says earnestly to Finnick. "No, it doesn't," says Finnick dismissively. But I crack up, remembering that's how a clueless Effie Trinket presented us to the people of the Capitol last year, before anyone knew us. As coal pressured into pearls by our weighty existence. Beauty that arose out of pain.
I held a jewel in my fingers And went to sleep. The day was warm, and winds were prosy; I said: "'T will keep." I woke and chid my honest fingers,β The gem was gone; And now an amethyst remembrance Is all I own.
I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.
You can't live the rest of your life carrying a pain because your parents couldn't get along. I choose to spend my life crafting a joy.
I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.