Quotes About Gifts

But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.

Every person has God-given gifts; when you're using those gifts in your life then you're fulfilling your purpose, and that is beautiful.

Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

We all enjoy giving and receiving presents. But there is a difference between presents and gifts. The true gifts may be part of ourselves-givin g of the riches of the heart and mind-and therefore more enduring and of far greater worth than presents bought at the store.

Independence is of more value than any gifts; and to receive gifts is to lose it.

Our gifts to this world, and this realm's gifts to us can come in many ways, often as we least expect them but they come especially when we are open to give, open to receive.

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust — not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

It is moments like these that force us to try harder, and dig deeper, and to discover gifts we never knew we had - to find the greatness that lies within each of us.

I think the coming of spring, the stars overhead, the first snowfall and so on are gifts for a child, a young poet.

If God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.

Robert Torricelli, a powerful fund-raiser who helped raise more than $100 million for the Democratic party, took inappropriate gifts from a businessman, including an $8,000 gold Rolex watch, for which he was severely admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee in July. To recap: raising $100 million in contributions from gigantic corporations - ethical; taking a watch - unethical. That's the Senate Ethics Committee, an oxymoron since 1974.

I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is just access to the possibility of freedom that you don't have to be totally depressed and enslaved by your own environment.

If you're always looking at someone else, trying to imitate them, how can your natural gifts ever emerge?

The gifts of God are not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them.

Manage the remarkable balance between acting from your heart and close to your gifts with completing the obligations that your labor and tasks require of you. Leverage opportunity AND seize joy.

Peace is one of the greatest gifts we can leave our children.

...the Lord said as He drew near His passion, 'Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself; and He will glorify Him at once' (Jn. 13:31-32). From This it is clear that divine gifts follow sufferings endured for the sake of virtue.

I feel that it is vital that we all re-open our spiritual gifts and open up to the voice of the Divine.

We can be content with simplicity because the deepest most satisfying delights God gives us through creation are free gifts from nature and from loving relationships with people. After your basic needs are met, accumulated money begins to diminish your capacity for these pleasures rather than increase them. Buying things contributes absolutely nothing to the heart's capacity for joy.

Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts.

True forgiveness is one of the most healing releasing, and freeing gifts we give to ourselves.

The emphasis on personal responsibility is something we've had in black America from the get-go. Every major leader and intellectual worth her salt has advocated for black folk to better ourselves and push ourselves to the limits of our abilities and gifts. At the same time, we've got to focus on creating a society that recognizes our worth, regardless of race and other factors.

Never pass up any opportunity to share your gifts with the world.

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identifiction, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

This is the treasure we need today - helping the child become independent of us and make his way by himself, receiving in return his gifts of hope and light.

As one's gifts increase, his friends decrease.

All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.

Dear young people, do not bury your talents, the gifts that God has given you! Do not be afraid to dream of great things!

And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans--and all that lives and move upon them. He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused--and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to earth and gave us Himself.

The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.

I wouldn't say Musashi is ordinary. But he is. That's what's extraordinary about him. He is not content to rely on whatever natural gifts he may have. Knowing he is ordinary, he is constantly trying to improve himself. No one appreciates the agonizing effort he's had to make. Now that his years of training have yielded such spectacular results, everybody's talking about his 'God-given talent.' That's how men who don't try very hard comfort themselves.

The good teacher discovers the natural gifts of his pupils and liberates them by the stimulating influence of the inspiration that he can impart. The true leader makes his followers twice the men they were before.

It doesn't really matter whether we reflect the light through our authentic gifts or whether our authentic calling is to spread it. What matters is that tonight is that the world is dark, cold, and bleak. Your flame burns so brightly. Share your Love and warmth with others. Watch the Light return.

You are either withholding your love in fear or giving your deepest gifts.

In the suburbs it's hard to buy your Christmas gifts early in the year. You never know who your friends will be in December.

I would only spend a week or two in the Philippines, most probably the week during my birthday because I am planning to give away Christmas gifts to the poor people of General Santos just like what I did last year.

We are all gifts to each other, and my own growth as a leader has shown me again and again that the most rewarding experiences come from my relationships.

Problems are the gifts that make us dig out and figure out who we are, what we're made for, and what we're responsible to give back to life.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom.

When the church becomes an institution, people are nothing more than volunteers to be recruited. When the church is a movement, our stewardship becomes the unleashing of our God-given gifts, talents, and passions.

I was given the gifts of the artist, and the trouble that goes with them: So I have that blessing, and there was never a time thatI questioned it or doubted it.... For forty years, I wanted to jump out of windows.

My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

Sonnet XXV Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own: I wavered through the streets, among Objects: Nothing mattered or had a name: The world was made of air, which waited. I knew rooms full of ashes, Tunnels where the moon lived, Rough warehouses that growled 'get lost', Questions that insisted in the sand. Everything was empty, dead, mute, Fallen abandoned, and decayed: Inconceivably alien, it all Belonged to someone else - to no one: Till your beauty and your poverty Filled the autumn plentiful with gifts.

Everyone truly does have God-given gifts. Find them and use them, and don't let anyone else tell you that you are less than who you are.

Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts.

There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.

One thing I'm afraid of is not taking advantage of opportunities. I feel like these are kind of gifts.