Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
Interpretation
Life is inherently unpredictable, making stability elusive for all living things.
This quote by Samuel Johnson highlights the inherent uncertainty of life. It suggests that because life is filled with unpredictability and change, any foundation that relies on living elements—such as relationships, endeavors, or aspirations—will also be subject to instability and fluctuation. This reflects a philosophical perspective on the nature of existence and the acceptance of uncertainty as a fundamental aspect of living.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing change and uncertainty.
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.
Were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first.
Those who do not think that employment is systemic slavery are either blind or employed.
But there comes a moment in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among the human beings or not - a fool among fools or a fool alone.
We must seek, in studying God, to be led to God.
the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.
Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.
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