For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.
Interpretation
Every gain comes with a cost or sacrifice.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote suggests that for any positive advantage or benefit we gain in life, there is an inherent cost associated with itβoften metaphorically referred to as a 'tax.' This can imply that nothing valuable comes without effort or trade-offs, and it prompts us to consider the balance between gain and loss in our pursuits.
In practice
During a seminar about entrepreneurship, one might say this quote to highlight the investments needed for success.
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?
Mercy is what moves us toward God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight.
Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache.
To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
Justice is the most important thing. In a plural society like Malaysia, you cannot have two laws - one law for the Muslim, one law for the non-Muslim.
Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.