Popular quotes about Gifts! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 58
What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy - theyโre given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if youโre not careful, and if you do, itโll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
Jeff BezosStabilizing the climate is not about saving the human species... Stabilizing the climate is a precious opportunity to pass on to all future human beings gifts of immense value, gifts that, once gone, will be beyond the imagination and skill of humanity to recreate.
Eban GoodsteinThe name 'cherubim' means 'fullness of knowledge' or 'outpouring of wisdom'... The name cherubim signifies the power to know and to see God, to receive the greatest gifts of His light, to contemplate the divine splendor in primordial power, to be filled with the gifts that bring wisdom and to share these generously with subordinates as a part of the beneficent outpouring of His wisdom.
Pope DionysiusCreation 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.
Ayn RandDay and night gifts keep pelting down on us. If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze. A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep. How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.
David Steindl-RastWe may think it humility not to realize that the Lord is bestowing gifts upon us. Let us understand very, very clearly, how this matter stands. God gives us these gifts for no merit of ours. Let us be grateful to His Majesty for them, for, unless we recognize that we are receiving them, we shall not be aroused to love Him. And it is a most certain thing that, if we remember all the time that we are poor, the richer we find ourselves, the greater will be the profit that comes to us and the more genuine our humility.
Teresa of AvilaWe all posses different gifts and abilities. How we use those gifts determines who we are.
Brandon MullNo nation being under another nation can accept gifts, and kick at the responsibility attached to those gifts, imposed by the conquering nation.
Mahatma GandhiI love giving gifts and I love receiving them. I really like giving little kids extravagant gifts. You see their little faces light up and they get excited. If it's a really good gift, I love receiving it, like jewels, small islands.
Gina GershonOne of the best gifts you can give to an animal is a donation of a blanket to your local animal shelter during the winter months.
Carrie Ann InabaWe are all here to contribute our gifts toward something greater than ourselves, and will never be content unless we are.
Charles EisensteinIf we have youth, beauty, blessed gifts, strength, if we find fame, fortune, favor, fulfillment, it is easy to be nice, to turn a warm heart to the world.
Oliver SacksWe must learn to measure ourselves, not by our knowledge about God, not by our gifts and responsibilities in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I suspect, have no idea how impoverished we are at this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.
J. I. PackerExperience may be hard but we claim its gifts because they are real, even though our feet bleed on its stones.
Mary Parker FollettThe Holy Spirit, in the variety of his gifts, unites us and enables us to contribute to the building up of the Church in holiness. In this great work, each of us has a part to play; each of us, as a "living stone", is needed for the growth and the beauty of God's holy temple. Let us ask the Lord to help us to take an ever more active part in the Church's life and mission, guided by the Holy Spirit and with Jesus as our cornerstone.
Pope FrancisOn my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to India...However, I was a cunning child so I kept my ambition to myself, thus avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders.
Dervla MurphyManage 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.
Mary Anne RadmacherIn 1986, Gloria Steinem wrote that if men got periods, they 'would brag about how long and how much': that boys would talk about their menstruation as the beginning of their manhood, that there would be 'gifts, religious ceremonies' and sanitary supplies would be 'federally funded and free'. I could live without the menstrual bragging - though mine is particularly impressive - and ceremonial parties, but seriously: Why aren't tampons free?
Jessica ValentiMost analysts would agree that if all the undocumented immigrants in California were deported in one day, our state would experience a severe economic downturn. This does not even consider the many cultural and spiritual gifts these immigrants bring to our state and nation.
Roger MahonyThe air, the water and the ground are free gifts to man and no one has the power to portion them out in parcels. Man must drink and breathe and walk and therefore each man has a right to his share of each.
James F. CooperI know starting careers in troubled times is a challenge, but it is also a privilege. Because it's moments like these that force us to try harder, dig deeper and to discover gifts we never knew we had. To find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don't ever shy away from that endeavor. Don't stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort as will be this nation that we all love.
Barack ObamaBeginning with Santa Claus as a cognitive exercise, a child is encouraged to share the same idea of reality as his peers. Even if that reality is patently invented and ludicrous, belief is encouraged with gifts that support and promote the common cultural lies. The greatest consensus in modern society is our traffic systems. The way a flood of strangers can interact, sharing a path, almost all of them traveling without incident. It only takes one dissenting driver to create anarchy.
Chuck PalahniukThanks 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 BombeckSociety will pardon much to genius and special gifts; but, being in its nature conventional, it loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together.
Ralph Waldo EmersonEven our most difficult moments bring us gifts. The trick, of course, is gratitude. Therein will you find both your peace and your joy.
Neale Donald WalschNature is always lavish of her gifts even to the most insignificant forms. The butterflies and moths are richly dowered in this respect.
Annie BesantThe world doesnโt need more people playing small. Itโs time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. Itโs time to stop needing and start leading. Itโs time to start sharing your gifts instead of hoarding them or pretending they donโt exist. Itโs time you started playing the game of life in a โbigโ way.
T. Harv EkerIf gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!
John PiperOur destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them.
Wendell BerryI think people who want to use genetic technologies to gain a competitive edge for their children are engaging in a kind of overreaching that could really undermine our appreciation of children as gifts for which we should be grateful and, instead, to view them as products or instruments that are there to be molded and directed.
Michael SandelYou have control over three things - what you think, what you say, and how you behave. To make a change in your life, you must recognize that these gifts are the most powerful tools you possess in shaping the form of your life.
Sonia FriedmanThe story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.
Elliott AbramsIf only you knew all the gifts that you bring to others. You would never feel sad again.
Neale Donald WalschI like to live my life so that my loved ones give me the things I need as gifts and I give them the things they need. Frankly a society built around consumerism is hell
Vandana ShivaOne of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us. The disappointments of life, the injustices, the battering events that are beyond our control, and the betrayals we endure, from those we befriended and loved, can make us cynical and turn our hearts into flint โ on which only the matches of anger and bitterness can be struck into flame. By their delight in being with us, the reliable sunniness of their disposition, the joy they bring to playtime, the curiosity with which they embrace each new experience, dogs can melt cynicism,and sweeten the bitter heart.
Dean KoontzIf I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.
Max MullerThere is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.
May SartonSound health is the greatest of gifts; contentedness, the greatest of riches; trust, the greatest of qualities.
Gautama BuddhaThe message of Christmas is not that we can make peace. Or that we can make love, make light, make gifts, or make this world save itself. The message of Christmas is that this worldโs a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah.
Ann Voskamp