Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Interpretation
People often allow external factors to shape their thoughts and beliefs.
Samuel Johnson's quote reflects the idea that many individuals do not think independently and are heavily influenced by their surroundings and the opinions of others. This suggests a lack of personal agency and a tendency to conform to societal norms or pressures rather than forming oneβs own opinions and ideas.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the effects of social media on individual thought.
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 must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves.
I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.
Come from forever, and you will go everywhere.
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
Today, in American imperialism, the commodity has reached its most grandiose historical manifestation.
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