Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread.
Interpretation
Contributing meaningfully to society will lead to your own fulfillment and support.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizes the importance of being valuable and indispensable in the world. When you make yourself essential by offering solutions, skills, or support, society will recognize your efforts and, in return, provide for your needs, symbolized here by 'bread'. It highlights a reciprocal relationship between selflessness and personal gain.
In practice
In a motivational speech about finding purpose in life, you could use this quote to inspire the audience.
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?
Like a great athlete, we must have a very clear vision of what we want to accomplish before we make a move. Vision, in preparation for an action, is as important as the action itself.
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
When I was really young, I busted my nose when I was racing. The first thing my dad asked me was: 'Are you OK?' I said, 'Can you fix the car for tomorrow?' And I won the race the next day.
First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don't know it. They're the ones for me. They never quit trying. They're the soul of our game.
When ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of extremity thou has passed through.
I guess it was the first time I really thought about leaving. I don't just mean Iron Maiden, I mean quitting music altogether. I just thought, 'Nothing is worth feeling like this for.' I began to feel like I was a piece of machinery, like I was part of the lighting rig.
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