Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Interpretation
Marriage often seems elusive, with people wanting what they don't have.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote highlights the paradoxical nature of marriage, suggesting that those who are married often desire freedom while those who are single yearn for the commitment of marriage. This reflects a broader commentary on human desires and societal expectations regarding relationships.
In practice
During a wedding toast, reflecting on the complexities of love and commitment.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.
A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.
You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.
...available people are the ones who are dangerous, because they confront us with the possibility of real intimacy.
Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in bonds of fraternal feeling.
The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.
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