Quotes about gift (1546 quotes, page 3)

“No man has a capacity for virtue who sacrifices honour for gain. Fortune is powerless to help one who does not exert himself. That man becomes happy who follows Christ. There is no perfect gift without great suffering. Our triumphs and our pomps pass away;”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Source: The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy, p. 91
Context: He who suffers time to slip away and does not grow in virtue the more one thinks about him the sadder one becomes. No man has a capacity for virtue who sacrifices honour for gain. Fortune is powerless to help one who does not exert himself. That man becomes happy who follows Christ. There is no perfect gift without great suffering. Our triumphs and our pomps pass away; gluttony and sloth and enervating luxury have banished every virtue from the world; so that as it were wandering from its course our nature is subdued by habit. Now and henceforth it is meet that you cure yourself of laziness. The Master has said that sitting on down or lying under the quilts will not bring thee to fame. He who without it has frittered life away leaves no more trace of himself upon the earth than smoke does in the air or the foam on the water.

Suffering , Help , Christ , Perfection

“The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because He wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift to us of the use of it, that oblige us to take excellent care of it.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"God and Country".
What Are People For? (1990)

Love , God , World , Thinking

“No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.423
Context: No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word, by whom He made all things, and to unite them as members to that Head. Thus the Word became both Son of God and Son of man: one God with the Father, one Man with men. Hence, when we offer our petitions to God, let it not detach itself from its Head. Let it be He, the sole Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our God. Let us therefore hear both our words in Him and His words in us.... We pray to Him in the form of God; He prays in the form of the slave. There He is the Creator; here He is in the creature. He changes not, but takes the creature and transforms it into Himself, making us one man, head and body, with Himself.
We pray therefore to Him, and through Him, and in Him. We pray with Him, and He with us; we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us.

Men , God

“The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: It is not enough to speak; you must know words. When you have said, "I am in pain," or when you have said, "I am right," you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to yourself. The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments. One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings. It is not I who will be able to speak from the depths of myself. The attention of men dazzles me when it rises before me. The very nakedness of paper frightens me and drowns my looks. Not I shall embellish that whiteness with writing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing, which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever country he may come, — but all the same, I should prefer him, at the bottom of my heart, to speak French.

Truth , Tear

“I was not a good doctor, my studies had been too rapid, my hospital training too short, but there is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful doctor. What is the secret of success? To inspire confidence. What is confidence?… I do not know, I only know that it cannot be acquired by book reading, nor by the bedside of our patients. It is a magic gift granted by birth-right to one man and denied to another. The doctor who possesses this gift can almost raise the dead.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Confidence , Study , Reading , Success

“Suitcases full of banknotes were said to be routinely taken to the Prime Minister’s house. Former Syndicate member S. K. Patil is reported to have said that Mrs Gandhi did not even return the suitcases... The Prime Minister is unlikely to have paid close attention to the dubious origins of some of the funds which went into Congress’s coffers. That was a matter which she left largely to her principal fundraiser, Lalit Narayan Mishra, who – though she doubtless did not realize it – also accepted Soviet money. On at least one occasion a secret gift of 2 million rupees from the Politburo to Congress (R) was personally delivered after midnight by the head of Line PR in New Delhi, Leonid Shebarshin. Another million rupees were given on the same occasion to a newspaper which supported Mrs Gandhi. Short and obese with several chins, Mishra looked the part of the corrupt politician he increasingly became. Indira Gandhi, despite her own frugal lifestyle, depended on the money he collected from a variety of sources to finance Congress (R). So did her son and anointed heir, Sanjay, whose misguided ambition to build an Indian popular car and become India’s Henry Ford depended on government favours.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

The Mitrokhin Archive

Money , Housing , Dependency , Support

“Talents is a creation of society rather than a gift of nature; it is an accumulated capital of which the recipient is only the guardian. Without society, without education and powerful assistance which it gives, the finest nature would be inferior to the most ordinary capacities even in the rare as where it ought to shine.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch.IV

Education , Nature

“I feel a kinship with you, too, you who have lost both brother and father. I know you have been judged and spoken of as the daughter of Valentine Morgenstern, and now the sister of Jonathan. There will always be those who want to tell you who you are based on your name or the blood in your veins. Do not let people decide who you are. Decide for yourself. That freedom is not a gift; it is a birthright. I hope that you and Jace will use it.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Tessa Gray, to Clary Fray, pg. 716
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

Freedom , Hope , Daughters , People

“Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

As quoted in LIFE magazine (22 April 1957), p. 152; also in Letters and Papers from Prison (1967), p. 47

Life , Time , Suffering , Making love

“Your curiosity is your greatest gift. Use it to expand your scope. Ordinary people won't understand your insatiable thirst for excellence. They won't bother to keep striving because it's too onerous, too difficult.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

“Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.”

Thomas Carlyle book Past and Present

It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)

God

“To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.”

David Whyte

What to Remember When Waking

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
Source: báseň What to Remember When Waking ze sbírky The House of Belonging

“When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.”

Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States

Friendship , World , Happy , Friendship

“The exercise of an extraordinary gift is the supremest pleasure in life.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Pleasure , Life , Exercises

“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Life , God , Birthday , Wise

“The global development of human society spawns so many gifted and talented individuals, whose creations will be a key factor in its further progress.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“We hide everything, even what may appear to be a gift of God, so as not to make it an instrument of profit. To God alone be honour and glory! If it were possible, we should pass over the earth like a shadow that leaves no trace.”

Leopold Mandić (1866–1942) Catholic priest; saint

Quoted in Pope John Paul II, Homily for the Canonization of Father Leopold of Castelnovo (16 October 1983) https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/it/homilies/1983/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19831016_leopoldo-da-castelnovo.html.
Original: (it) Nascondiamo tutto, anche quello che può avere apparenza di dono di Dio, affinché non se ne faccia mercato. A Dio solo l'onore e la gloria! Se fosse possibile, noi dovremmo passare sulla terra come un'ombra che non lascia traccia di sé.

God , Appearance

“Cause everyone whose life you touch to feel worthy. Give everyone a sense of their own worthiness as a person, a sense of the true wonder of who they are. Give this gift and you will heal the world.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Personality , World , Sense , Life

“It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy, just different.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Beauty

“The only gift is a portion of thyself.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Gifts

“You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet”

Simon Armitage (1963) Poet, playwright, novelist

Beauty , Light

“Today is a gift from God - that is why it is called the present.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

God

“Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Age , Way

“When a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Shadow & Claw

“I'm a good neurosugeon. That's not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and sharpening for my skills.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

God , Way , Training

“You say their stories, it is gift they give you.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

“The worst gift I was given is when I got out of rehab that Christmas; a bottle of wine. It was delicious.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Wine , Christmas

“It's a strange paradox that a man gifted with too many talents can fritter them all away without developing a single one to its full.”

Wilbur Smith book Rage

Source: Rage

“Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.”

Vikram Seth book An Equal Music

Source: An Equal Music

Hope , Music , Soul , Time

“I wasn’t gifted. Mom was wrong. I was just smart and I worked hard. I had fooled myself into thinking that was something important to the rest of the world. Other people were complicit in this ruse. Nobody had told me I was common.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People , World , Fools , Moms

“She is not a writer at all, really; she is merely a gifted eccentric.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

“Nobody is capable of of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to learned and worked at. [p.93]”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 6: The Vocation of Eloquence
Context: Freedom has nothing to do with lack of training; it can only be the product of training. You're not free to move unless you've learned to walk, and not free to play the piano unless you practise. Nobody is capable of free speech unless he knows how to use the language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to be learned and worked at.

Knowledge , Learning

“My earliest memories of my father are of seeing him work at his desk and realizing that he was happy. I did not know it then, but that was one of the most precious gifts a father can give his child.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Memory , Happiness

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Attributed to Keillor in The Miracle of Language‎ (1999) by Richard Lederer, p. 149, this statement also appears in What‎? (1988) by Ronald Silliman, p. 28:
A book is a gift you can open again and again especially when you're writing it yourself.
Disputed

Books

“It takes long practice, yes. You have to work. Did you think you could snap your fingers, and have it as a gift? What is worth having is worth working for.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: The Amber Spyglass

Thinking

“It’s lovely loving, isn’t it? In fact, I find it almost better, because being loved sometimes embarrasses me, but loving is a gift.”

Sheila Hancock (1933) British actress

Love

“Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Life

“The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Lovers , Suffering

“Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Way , Search , Fight

“Keep your secrets
Keep your silence
It is a better gift than truth”

Anne Rice book The Queen of the Damned

Source: The Queen of the Damned

Truth , Secret , Silence

“No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love , Dogs , Animals

“Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Seventh Configuration "Departure"
Source: The Lost World (1995)
Context: A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies. And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.

Life , Sun

“You're only a man! You've not our gifts! I can tell you! Why, a woman can think of a hundred different things at once, all them contradictory!”

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist

Source: Powder And Patch

Thinking

“You have a great heart, but will only find it to be so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift…. I have endured much suffering and still remain unbitter and unclosed.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

Source: The Naming

Love , Wisdom , Pain , Suffering

“Every human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Love , Exercises , Communication

“I loved this woman the way you love… well, nothing," he said, a note of suprise in his voice. "You can’t compare that kind of love to anything, can you? It’s its own unique gift.”

Dennis Lehane book Shutter Island

Source: Shutter Island

Love , Way

“Two farewell gifts," Sadie muttered, "from two gorgeous guys. I hate my life.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Life , Hate , Guy

“It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The House of the Seven Gables

Source: The House of the Seven Gables

People

“Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Way , Business , Box

“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 15 (p. 235)
Source: Shards of Honour

“… besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

Love

“He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Love

“Want to know the best thing about teaching? Seeing that moment when a kid discovers his or her gift. There's no feeling on earth like it.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Feeling

“Reading is a gift. It's something you can do almost anytime and anywhere. It can be a tremendous way to learn, relax, and even escape. So, enough about the virtues of reading. Time to read on.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Teens: Simple Ways to Keep Your Cool in Stressful Times

Way , Learning , Time , Reading

“The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

Source: Unless You Become Like This Child

God , Communication , Birth , Personality

“If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Friendship , For Friend , For Bestfriend , Love

“(existing's tricky:but to live's a gift)”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Selected Poems

“Children are a precious gift, but they belong to no one but themselves. They are only lent us a little while.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Children

“It is good to dress in fair clothes to dine with friends. It honors your host, if you are a guest; and your guest if you are a host. And both adorn the feast, and so celebrate the gifts of the world.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

World , Clothes

“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Variant: The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence

Birthday , Children

“I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy, too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Pain , Justice

“To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gift -absolute gifts- which have not been acquired by one's effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Soul , Courage , Effort

“While we have the gift of life, it seems to me the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die—whether it is our spirit, our creativity or our glorious uniqueness.”

Gilda Radner (1946–1989) American comedian

Cells (1988), pg. 23, Popular's Young Discoverer Series, Discovery Channel https://books.google.com.au/books?id=mrTYvoaUlTAC&pg=PA23

Life , Parting

“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Jason suggested. “Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that’s when
they’re needed most.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

People , Way

“There is such a thing as too much beauty in a woman and it is often a burden as crippling as homeliness and far more dangerous. It takes much luck and integrity to survive the gift of perfect beauty, and its impermanence is its most cunning betrayal.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

Beauty , Betrayal , Perfection

“On the other hand it was bad manners to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if you're getting it from an overweight cracker in a fringe shirt.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Horse

“Honesty is a very expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

People

“This isn't a letter, it's a gift.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“Freedom is not our gift to the world it is God's gift to humanity.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

God , World , Freedom

“Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry - the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Communication

“We're taught to expect unconditional love from our parents, but I think it is more the gift our children give us. It's they who love us helplessly, no matter what or who we are.”

Kathryn Harrison book The Kiss

Source: The Kiss

Love , Children , Thinking , Parent

“As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift-or curse, perhaps-of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we're just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Thinking

“my grandmother has given me her own version of the precious gift: the most precious gift any teenager coul ask for:
MY GRANDMOTHER HAS GIVEN MY MY OWN SEX PLACE!!!!!”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Princess on the Brink

Sex

“What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Nature

“But that is the dual gift of love, isn’t it? The joy of greeting and the sorrow of good-bye.”

Patricia Briggs book Dead Heat

Source: Dead Heat

Love , Joy

“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Life

“Sometimes, you get no second chance and that its best to accept the gifts the world offers you.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

World , Chance

“If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Money , Thinking , Happiness

“Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

God , Way

“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”

Richard J. Foster (1942) American Quaker theologian

Source: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

People , Intelligence

“You’re one of those guys who can make a party just by leaving it. It’s a great gift.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Girl in Blue

Source: The Girl in Blue (1970)

Guy

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

“Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that's when they're needed most.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

People

“He loved constantly, instantly, spontaneously, without thought or words. That's what he taught me. Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell. That was his gift.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Love , Thinking

“Toleration … is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Part III, Ch. 2: Personality http://books.google.com/books?id=zev1dMhB7C4C&q=Toleration+"is+the+greatest+gift+of+the+mind+it+requires+the+same+effort+of+the+brain+that+it+takes+to+balance+oneself+on+a+bicycle"&pg=PA295#v=onepage
The Story of My Life (1903)

Wise , Effort

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Source: The Sense of Wonder (1965), p. 55 and Back Cover

World , Sense , Joy

“She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn't know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.”

Robert Crais (1953) Novelist, screenwriter

“Dogs are a gift to mankind. They are happy and joyful and loyal by nature. They are pure, positive energy and teach by example. That is all that's required of them.”

Alyson Nöel book Radiance

Source: Radiance

Dogs , Nature , Happiness

“Come with me into the woods where spring is
advancing, as it does, no matter what,
not being singular or particular, but one
of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dog Songs

Spring

“Peace is our gift to each other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Peace

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Knowledge

“Paranoia: the gift of the survivor and the burden of the overtired, stressed, and terrified…”

Patricia Briggs book Frost Burned

Source: Frost Burned

“We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Under Heaven

Source: Under Heaven

World

“Gifts of the heart can't be claimed by anyone except the giver.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Heart

“You weren't an accident. You weren't mass produced. You aren't an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the earth by the Master Craftsman.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: The Christmas Candle

“The gift was not large as money goes, and my need was not great, but the spirit of the gift is beyond price and leaves me blessed and in debt.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Money

“Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Life , Time

“… if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of Confidence. Either that or a scented candle.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Variant: You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle
Source: One Day

Life , Confidence

Quotes about gift page 3

Quotes about gift
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