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?
There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and then shame upon him who will not stretch out the helping hand to his brother.
Instead of answering her as soon as he saw her hair grow electric, her face more vivid, her eyes like lightning, her body restless and jerky like a racehorse’s, he retired behind this wall of objective understanding, this gentle testing and acceptance of her, just as one watches an animal in the zoo and smiles at his antics, but is not drawn into this mood. It was this which left Lilith in a state of isolation - indeed, like a wild animal in an absolute desert.
When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say.
Everybody has the right to marry the person they love and be represented as a couple and family... It's something that people will look back on in years to come and say, 'I can't believe it took so long for us to recognize this.' It'll be like segregation and giving women the right to vote.
It was sad, the imbalance of it all. Why do kids assume so much from one parent and hold the other to a lower, looser standard?
The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.
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