Quotes about gift
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Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“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.

Wendell Berry photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“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.

Henri Barbusse photo

“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.

Axel Munthe photo
Indíra Gándhí photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Dietrich Bonhoeffer photo
Michael Jackson photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“Genius is 'the inspired gift of God.”

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)

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

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

Maria Shriver photo
Voltaire photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
Leopold Mandić photo

“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.

Neale Donald Walsch photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The only gift is a portion of thyself.”

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

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

Simon Armitage photo
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar photo

“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

Katharine Hepburn photo
Gene Wolfe photo

“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

Ben Carson photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“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…
Wilbur Smith photo
Vikram Seth photo
Ned Vizzini photo
Northrop Frye photo

“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.

Malcolm Gladwell photo
Garrison Keillor photo

“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

Philip Pullman photo
Sheila Hancock photo
Oprah Winfrey photo
Anne Rice photo
Milan Kundera photo
Michael Crichton photo

“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.”

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.

Georgette Heyer photo

“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

Alison Croggon photo
Jean Vanier photo
Dennis Lehane photo
Rick Riordan photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Bryce Courtenay photo
Arundhati Roy photo
Stephen King photo

“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

Hans Urs Von Balthasar photo
George MacDonald photo
E.E. Cummings photo

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

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

Source: Selected Poems

Jim Butcher photo
Alison Croggon photo

“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

Diana Gabaldon photo
Kate Chopin photo
Gilda Radner photo

“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

Rick Riordan photo
Pat Conroy photo
David Nicholls photo

“This isn't a letter, it's a gift.”

Source: One Day

Gillian Flynn photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Meg Cabot photo
Johann Sebastian Bach photo
Florence Nightingale photo

“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
Paulo Coelho photo
Idries Shah photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“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

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Rick Riordan photo
Christopher Moore photo
Helen Keller photo

“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.”

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)

Rachel Carson photo
Robert Crais photo
Alyson Nöel photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“Peace is our gift to each other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Albert Einstein photo

“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

Guy Gavriel Kay photo
Max Lucado photo
Robert Fulghum photo
David Nicholls photo

“… 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.”

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