Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.
Interpretation
True gifts come from the heart, not material possessions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that tangible gifts, such as jewelry, are often substitutes for genuine connection and emotional presence. The essence of a true gift lies in the selflessness of offering one's time, attention, and love to another person, rather than resorting to material items that fail to convey true affection.
In practice
During a wedding, to emphasize the importance of love over material gifts.
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?
My request is not for bliss of the Garden. I only desire to see You.
By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth, And that no woman has, nor never none Shall mistress be of it save I alone.
I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.
Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most messed-up children - the way you'd ache and love a screwed-up rebel daughter in juvenile hall.
Was not Jesus an extremist in love? - "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you."
Find me now. Before someone else does.
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