Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.
Interpretation
True gifts come from the heart, not material possessions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that tangible gifts, such as jewelry, are often substitutes for genuine connection and emotional presence. The essence of a true gift lies in the selflessness of offering one's time, attention, and love to another person, rather than resorting to material items that fail to convey true affection.
In practice
During a wedding, to emphasize the importance of love over material gifts.
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?
Perhaps this is how girls fall -- not in some crime of enchantment at the hands of a wicked ne'er-do-well, a grand before and after in which they are innocent victims who have no say in the matter. Perhaps they simply are kissed and want to kiss back. Perhaps they even kiss first. And why should they not?
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.
Those are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves.
He painted me when I was young because he was in love with me, but now that he has loved me he doesn't paint me anymore.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
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