The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and not despairs.
Interpretation
Love is a powerful force that inspires and uplifts people, promoting hope and aspiration.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the admirable qualities of love, suggesting that it inherently seeks elevation and positivity. He contrasts love's uplifting nature with despair, indicating that love encourages individuals to look for the best in themselves and each other, thus fostering hope and aspiration rather than hopelessness.
In practice
This quote would be perfect for a wedding speech to celebrate the power of love in uniting two people.
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?
So sweet love seemed that April morn. When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change.
I will never hurt you. I will always help you. If you are hungry Ill give you my food. If you are frightened I am your friend. I love you now. And love does not end.
All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I'm wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don't know anything, and I'm the first one to admit it.
You have been mine before - How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's soar, your neck turned so, Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.
Burn worldly love, _x000D_ rub the ashes and make ink of it, _x000D_ make the heart the pen, _x000D_ the intellect the writer, _x000D_ write that which has no end or limit.
Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart; My silent heart, lie still and break: Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed For a dream's sake.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.