When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,-no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.
Interpretation
Emerson highlights that genuine connection is born from love, not mere service to others.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses the idea that attempts to connect with others through service or duty often fall flat and result in a superficial relationship. He contrasts this with the deeper bond that arises from love, which fosters a sense of joy and mutual appreciation, suggesting that authentic connections are rooted in genuine feelings rather than transactional interactions.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a friendship celebration to emphasize the importance of genuine connections.
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?
Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.
The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.
Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.
The life of many a person could probably be changed if only someone would make him feel important.
We meet God through entering into a relationship both of dependance on Jesus as our Saviour and Friend and of discipleship to Him as our Lord and Master.
Our country has a painful history of mistrust between police departments and people of color. The overuse of stop-and-frisk has made those divisions much worse.
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