Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Interpretation
Samuel Johnson critiques gaming as an activity that lacks social value and productive output.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson asserts that while he does not view gamblers as inherently dishonest, he does consider them unsociable and unprofitable members of society. He highlights that gaming merely shifts wealth without creating any real value or benefit, suggesting that such activities contribute little to social cohesion or economic productivity.
In practice
In a debate on the social impacts of gaming, one might quote Johnson to emphasize the lack of social contribution in gambling.
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.
The word liberal comes from the word free. We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.
Know not to revere human things too much.
BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to be something from the man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.
Thrillers are like life, more like life than you are.
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