It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
Interpretation
The quote argues against censorship in writing, suggesting that freedom of expression should not be limited due to the potential for criticism or wrongdoing.
Samuel Johnson's quote highlights the tension between freedom of expression and the potential consequences of that freedom. He likens the act of censoring writers to the unreasonable practice of locking doors at night only because thieves exist. Johnson suggests that it is more rational to allow writers to express themselves freely, even if some might later face censure, just as it is unreasonable to restrict freedom out of fear of criminals.
In practice
During a debate on freedom of speech, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of allowing diverse opinions.
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.
What is it that you contain? The Dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia. The expanding universe opening in your gut. Are your twenty-three feet of intestines loaded with stars?
Man need not be degraded to a machine by being denied to be a ghost in a machine. He might, after all, be a sort of animal, namely, a higher mammal. There has yet to be ventured the hazardous leap to the hypothesis that perhaps he is a man.
...the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge.
Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
Dreaming of a tomorrow, which tomorrow, will be as distant then as 'tis today.
You try to be yourself, do only what you've always done and like to do, and right away, you're tagged as an oddball.
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