Quotes About Gifts

Power. What do we mean? 'The ability to determine another man's luck.' ...how is it that some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture these gifts to maturity, for though humanity's topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower -- for want of discipline. Third: the will to power.

Deep down inside we know that the best gifts don't come from catalogs or shopping malls. They don't come in brightly-colored packages or fancy envelopes and they're not sitting under a tree somewhere... The best gifts come from the heart. They come when we look at each other, REALLY look at each other and say 'You mean a lot to me' or 'I'm so glad you're a part of my life.' A gift like that will never go out of style or be forgotten or be returned for a different size. A gift like that can change the world.

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts- O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!

One is never completely satisfied. But I can say that I'm not dissatisfied. I've been very fortunate. I've been given some gifts - to take advantage of the contemporary times when I made movies. Gifts to make audiences laugh.

Some people find the gift of salvation. For others the gifts are smaller: a kind word, a good deed. But all the gifts are from God.

Whether they are raised in indigenous or modern culture, there are two things that people crave: the full realization of their innate gifts, and to have these gifts approved, acknowledged, and confirmed. There are countless people in the West whose efforts are sadly wasted because they have no means of expressing their unique genius. In the psyches of such people there is an inner power and authority that fails to shine because the world around them is blind to it.

Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of sunlight and the sound of birds singing and spring showers. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether it is in the form of a material gift, a compliment or a prayer.

When we must pay the true price for the depletion of nature’s gifts, materials will become more precious to us, and economic logic will reinforce, and not contradict, our heart’s desire to treat the world with reverence and, when we receive nature’s gifts, to use them well.

One 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.

Xenial' is a word which refers to the giving of gifts to strangers. . . . I know that having a good vocabulary doesn't guarantee that I'm a good person. . . . But it does mean I've read a great deal. And in my experience, well-read people are less likely to be evil.

I am extremely grateful for two big gifts from my father. First, my sense of humor - the ability to see the humor in something while it is happening. That has cushioned my life. I am also grateful for the work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It has enriched my life and made me a very different person.

It’s the Muslims who are dragging the rest of the world with them, in their genocidal dreams of annihilating goodness, creativity, production, inventiveness, benevolence, charity, medicine, technology, and all of the gifts of the Jews. Our goodness makes them ill.

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.

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.

An occupation that has no basis in sex-determined gifts can now recruit its ranks from twice as many potential artists.

God, who is liberal in all his other gifts, shows us, by the wise economy of His providence, how circumspect we ought to be in the management of our time, for He never gives us two moments together.

Everyone knows, or should know, that everything we type on our computers or say into our cell phones is being disseminated throughout the datasphere. And most of it is recorded and parsed by big data servers. Why do you think Gmail and Facebook are free? You think they're corporate gifts? We pay with our data.

Everybody needs some inspiration, Everybody needs some motivation, mix it up with some imagination, and use your natural gifts.

In 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?

We have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the Industrial revolution, which began in England, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined. There is first the threat of global war. No president, no Congress, no prime minister, no parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

Gifts fall from heaven only in fairy tales.

That girl had the subtlety of a Spencer’s Gifts shop.

As a writer, I am not goddess of the universes I create. I am at most a stage manager of the plentiful gifts which tumble out of the horn of plenty, which is to say there is a source so sweet and forgiving and generous that I pray every day to let that source be my guide.

One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

God loves to glorify himself by suspending his gifts and blessings on our asking him for them. We should never presume to receive from God apart from prayer what he's clearly told us in Scripture will be ours only through prayer.

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.

Forgiveness and the release of the past open the creative flow of life, supporting all levels of mind, heart, body, emotion, and spirit. This energy flow determines the state of our health, our desire to create and procreate, our willingness to develop our gifts, and how we use or deny the life force that we are given as human beings. . . . by choosing to let go of the past, our fears, and our negative patterns or reactions to life, we are suddenly funded with a resurgence of life force, which propels us into a newfound way of being and a very different way of understanding the world.

The world doesn’t need more people playing small. It’s time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. It’s time to stop needing and start leading. It’s time to start sharing your gifts instead of hoarding them or pretending they don’t exist. It’s time you started playing the game of life in a “big” way.

I have to say, I'm good with gifts. If I find something perfect for a certain person, I'll just get it and put it away in a kind of nook under my bed - a little gift hutch, if you prefer.

There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.

But once you publish a book, doesn’t it by definition become the realm of public discourse? Otherwise, wouldn’t we just write books and print them out ourselves, and give them to specific people we felt comfortable giving them to–like gifts? Isn’t publishing sort of a social contract?

I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.

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

The vocation of being a 'protector' [. . .] means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us [. . .] In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!

My father, Norman Mailer, expected a lot from us and he really pushed us and you know one of his favorite lines was, "If you think I'm being hard on you, wait until life hits you because life is a hell of a lot tougher than I am." And I took everything he said to heart. He taught me how to write, which was scary and intimidating and hard, but ultimately one of the biggest gifts I could have ever asked for.

Happiness and a positive attitude are gifts you can pass along. So get out there and start giving.

Are you balanced? Do you share your time, your energy, your life, as much with yourself as you do with those around you?. . . . Know your limits. You are one of the most important people you need to look after and love. Balance your time, your energy, your life with those around you. You'll be able to give more freely and joyfully as a result, and you'll be more open to the gifts of the universe. It's not wrong to give to others. But it's okay to say yes to ourselves, too.

We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those.

Honestly, I just think we all have special gifts, everyone. You know, obviously, some are more noticeable than others and that's why there's the limelight. Everybody's in it.

Depression, pain, and fear are gifts that say, "Sweetheart, take a look at your thinking in this moment. You're living in a story that isn't true for you." Living a lie is always stressful. And investigating a lie through The Work always leads you back to who you are. Who you are is not an option. You are love. It hurts to believe you're other than who you are, to live any story less than love.

Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honor the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth's and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.

Without Christ, sciences in every department are vain....The man who knows not God is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we may affirm this too with truth, that these choice gifts of God -- expertness of mind, acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.

There are no more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of Nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great.

Brands and branding are the most significant gifts that commerce has ever made to popular culture.

It is said the sesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.

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.

I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.