I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
Emily BronteRead
Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?
Interpretation
This quote compares love and friendship to different types of plants, highlighting their contrasting characteristics and the constancy of friendship.
Emily Bronte uses the imagery of a wild rose-briar and a holly-tree to illustrate the different natures of love and friendship. While love may be beautiful and vibrant like a blooming rose, it can also be fleeting and unpredictable, whereas friendship is depicted as steady and reliable, much like the evergreen holly-tree, which remains constant even when the more flamboyant rose has faded.
In practice
During a wedding toast, one might mention how love and friendship play vital roles in relationships.
I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.
I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never laid down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed, and listened. I could not help wishing we were all there safe together.
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, 'till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompts to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavors to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain; Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again?
To show great love for God and our neighbor we need not do great things. It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our offering something beautiful for God.
When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience becomes a joy rather than a burden.
I'm so proud the fans still sing my name, but I fear tomorrow they will stop. I fear it because I love it. And everything you love, you fear you will lose.
He who would love much has also much to suffer.
I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops, so your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.
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