Quotes and Sayings about Gifts
"You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty."
- Louisa May Alcott
(Related: Power, Talent, Genius, Charm, Conceit, Danger, Gifts, Goodness, Modesty, Will)
"Quarrels often arise in marriages when the bridal gifts are excessive."
- Antisthenes
(Related: Gifts, Quarrels)
"This truth is a remedy against spiritual pride, namely, that none should account himself better before God than others, though perhaps adorned with greater gifts, and endowments."
- Johann Arndt
(Related: God, Truth, Gifts, Pride, Spiritual)
"Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge."
- Matthew Arnold
(Related: Knowledge, Gifts, Practice)
"Making lasting gifts for animals in our estate plans is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to ensure animals have the strongest possible voice for their protection."
- Bea Arthur
(Related: Animals, Gifts, Protection, Voice)
"Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self."
- Francis of Assisi
(Related: Christ, Gifts, Grace, Overcoming, Self)
"Each day provides its own gifts."
- Marcus Aurelius
(Related: Day, Gifts)
"Having good health, being able to breathe and be happy, that's one of the most beautiful gifts. On top of that, I have the gift to play music and make people happy through that. I'm just telling you from my heart, I'm so in love with life."
- Roy Ayers
(Related: Life, Love, Music, Health, People, Heart, Being, Gifts, Play)
"I want to give as many Canadians the opportunity to be successful and if we can use their athletic gifts to get them a free degree or a free diploma across the border then I guess I'm doing my job."
- Donovan Bailey
(Related: Opportunity, Successful, Gifts, Job, Want)
"By a great man, however, we mean a man who, because of his spiritual gifts, his character, and other qualities, deserves to be called great and who as a result earns the power to influence others."
- Fredrik Bajer
(Related: Power, Character, Gifts, Influence, Man, Result, Spiritual)
"Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!"
- Honore De Balzac
(Related: Peace, Science, Fate, Tax, Gifts, Liberty, Nation)
"Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock."
- Walter Benjamin
(Related: Gifts)
"It's difficult to understand why people don't realize that pets are gifts to mankind."
- Linda Blair
(Related: People, Gifts, Mankind, Pets)
"Having yet another vote on refinery legislation that uses high oil prices as an excuse to weaken environmental protections and to give more legislative gifts to the oil industry is misguided in the extreme."
- Sherwood Boehlert
(Related: Environmental, Extreme, Gifts, Legislation, Oil, Vote)
"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
(Related: Business, Society, Mother, Gifts, Years)
"Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."
- Garth Brooks
(Related: God, Gifts)
"Some artists shrink from self-awareness, fearing that it will destroy their unique gifts and even their desire to create. The truth of the matter is quite opposite."
- James Broughton
(Related: Truth, Artists, Desire, Gifts, Self, Will)
"If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you."
- Les Brown
(Related: Determination, Goals, Gifts, Will)
"God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Related: Dreams, God, Gifts, Man, Shame)
"Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed."
- Jean de la Bruyere
(Related: Gifts, Giving, Liberality)
"I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts."
- Peabo Bryson
(Related: Talent, Being, Gifts, Light, Spiritual)
"Vocational education programs have made a real difference in the lives of countless young people nationwide; they build self-confidence and leadership skills by allowing students to utilize their unique gifts and talents."
- Conrad Burns
(Related: Education, Leadership, People, Difference, Gifts, Self, Students)
"It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: Love, Peace, Nature, Children, Earth, Gifts, Honor, Will)
"To be an artist includes much; one must possess many gifts - absolute gifts - which have not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist much possess the courageous soul."
- Kate Chopin
(Related: Soul, Artist, Effort, Gifts, Succeed)
"Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children?"
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Nature, Children, Gifts, Man, Race)
"However, all gifts seem now to be absorbed in one and a man must be either a Preacher or nothing."
- Adam Clarke
(Related: Gifts, Man, Nothing, Now)
"Christians need to take the lead in educating people that children are gifts, as my autistic grandson most surely is. By going down the path we're currently on, we might one day get rid of genetic diseases, but only at the cost of our own humanity."
- Charles Colson
(Related: People, Children, Day, Gifts, Humanity)
"Lee's great gifts are teaching and inspirational guidance, not administration and management."
- Cheryl Crawford
(Related: Inspirational, Management, Gifts, Guidance, Teaching)
"Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly."
- Democritus
(Related: Men, Gods, Blindness, Folly, Gifts, Now, Old)
"I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure."
- Princess Diana
(Related: Gifts, Want)
"Last year my boyfriend gave me a painting - a very personal one. I really prefer personal gifts or ones made by someone for me. Except diamonds. That's the exception to the rule."
- Minnie Driver
(Related: Boyfriend, Gifts, Painting)
"Technology is a gift of God. After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences."
- Freeman Dyson
(Related: Life, Technology, Mother, God, Gifts)
"People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: People, Gifts)
"Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: Men, Gifts)
"The gifts of God should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi."
- Medgar Evers
(Related: God, Gifts)
"I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God's gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment."
- Frances Farmer
(Related: Love, God, Friend, Gifts)
"I always try to give my songs as gifts."
- Dan Fogelberg
(Related: Gifts, Songs)
"I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of the gifts useful to life."
- Anatole France
(Related: Life, Fate, Gifts, Poor, Poverty, Value)
"One of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten is my daughter."
- Ace Frehley
(Related: Daughter, Gifts)
"I think that's one of the most important gifts we have in television - the ability to heal through laughter."
- Soleil Moon Frye
(Related: Ability, Gifts, Laughter, Television)
"President Reagan is now at rest. We mourn his passing, but we are grateful for the gifts he gave us: a safer world, strong economic base, and a renewed belief in America's greatness."
- Elton Gallegly
(Related: Belief, Greatness, America, Gifts, Now, President, Rest, World)
"Some people are born with the necessary gift, and some work hard to build on the few gifts they have."
- Peter Garrett
(Related: Work, People, Gifts)
"I 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 Gershon
(Related: Love, Faces, Gifts, Giving, Islands, Jewels, Kids, Light)
"We sometimes received - and I would read - 200 manuscripts a week. Some of them were wonderful, some were terrible; most were mediocre. It was like the gifts of the good and bad fairies."
- Marilyn Hacker
(Related: Fairies, Gifts)
"No, what I should really like to do right now, in the full blaze of lights, before this illustrious assembly, is to shower every one of you with gifts, with flowers, with offerings of poetry - to be young once more, to ride on the crest of the wave."
- Knut Hamsun
(Related: Poetry, Flowers, Gifts, Now, Right)
"One of the best lessons I learned early is that not everything in life is about you. It is about service. If you want trips and excessive gifts, then don't get into public service."
- Sean Hannity
(Related: Life, Gifts, Public, Service, Want)
"In suggesting gifts: Money is appropriate, and one size fits all."
- William Randolph Hearst
(Related: Money)
"From the time that I can remember, I worked to make money - either baby-sitting, or one year wrapping gifts at a department store at Christmas, so I could have my own money."
- Christie Hefner
(Related: Money, Time, Baby, Christmas, Gifts)
"Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Temple, Acting, Gifts)
"So I show appreciation for the little gifts that have been handed to me."
- Terrence Howard
(Related: Appreciation, Gifts)
"Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another."
- Thomas Hughes
(Related: Power, God, Friends, Gifts, Self)
"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."
- Ivan Illich
(Related: People, Attitude, Acceptance, American, Americans, Blessings, Gifts, May)
"An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather."
- Washington Irving
(Related: Nature, Thought, Gifts, Heaven, Mind, Oil, Sea, Weather)
"I consider myself an artist. God granted me some gifts so that I could express myself artistically."
- Don Johnson
(Related: God, Artist, Gifts)
"One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer."
- Caroline Kennedy
(Related: Love, Mother, Brother, Energy, Gifts, Language, Libraries, Literature, Old, Open)
"I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life."
- Rose Kennedy
(Related: Life, Beauty, Intelligence, God, Children, Friends, Gifts, Respect, Spirit)
"Children remind us to treasure the smallest of gifts, even in the most difficult of times."
- Allen Klein
(Related: Children, Gifts, Treasure)
"I do give books as gifts sometimes, when people would rather have one than a new Ferrari."
- Dean Koontz
(Related: People, Books, Gifts)
"He was one of those inexplicable gifts of nature, an artist who leaps over boundaries, changes our nervous systems, creates a new language, transmits new kinds of joy to our startled senses and spirits."
- Jack Kroll
(Related: Nature, Artist, Gifts, Inexplicable, Joy, Language, Senses, Spirits)
"If, on occasion, the knowledge brought by science leads to an unhappy end, this is not to the discredit of science but is rather an indication of an imperfect ability to use wisely the gifts placed within our hands."
- Polykarp Kusch
(Related: Science, Knowledge, Ability, End, Gifts)
"I always have the most fun on the Fourth of July. You don't have to exchange any gifts. You just go to the beach and watch fireworks. It's always fun."
- James Lafferty
(Related: Beach, Fun, Gifts, July)
"Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing."
- Charles Lamb
(Related: Gratitude, People, Gifts, Nothing, Value)
"The teams who play against us don't give us any gifts, but we were too kind."
- Robert Laurent
(Related: Gifts, Play)
"Having children is my greatest achievement. It was my saviour. It switched my focus from the outside to the inside. My children are gifts, they remind me of what's important."
- Elle Macpherson
(Related: Achievement, Children, Focus, Gifts)
"Most 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 Mahony
(Related: Experience, Day, Gifts, Nation, Spiritual, State)
"It's just a whole different thing, and it's just that my life has been a blessing, and I thank god every day for the gifts that he has given me and for my daughter and to be able to watch her grow and be a part of her joys and her excitement and what she wants to do in life."
- Teena Marie
(Related: Life, Daughter, God, Day, Excitement, Gifts)
"A woman's gifts will make room for her."
- Hattie McDaniel
(Related: Gifts, Will, Woman)
"The gifts that one receives for giving are so immeasurable that it is almost an injustice to accept them."
- Rod McKuen
(Related: Gifts, Giving, Injustice)
"Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do."
- Gian Carlo Menotti
(Related: God, Vision, Day, Gifts, Hell)
"Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts and the purpose of our politics is to expand them, for all our people."
- Ed Miliband
(Related: Politics, People, Opportunity, Purpose, Freedom, Gifts)
"One needs a Seer's Vision and an Angel's voice to be of any avail. I do not know of any Indian man or woman today who has those gifts in their most complete measure."
- Sarojini Naidu
(Related: Vision, Gifts, Man, Measure, Needs, Today, Voice, Woman)
"The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality."
- Florence Nightingale
(Related: Death, Sacrifice, Development, Conventionality, Gifts, World)
"I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see."
- Peggy Noonan
(Related: Gifts, Miracles, World)
"The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace."
- John Owen
(Related: Gifts, Grace, May, Windows)
"Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening."
- Walter Pater
(Related: Attitude, Day, Evening, Gifts, Sleep, Sun)
"Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts."
- Mary Pipher
(Related: Experience, Adolescence, Gifts, Girls, Pressure)
"All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else."
- Plato
(Related: Quality, Gifts, Man, Occupation, Quantity, Right, Will)
"The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Nature, Body, Gifts, Infinite, Mind, Variety)
"For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Destruction, Dumb, Gifts, Man, Providence, Reason)
"Without natural gifts technical rules are useless."
- Quintilian
(Related: Gifts, Rules)
"The earlier practice of the Church had been more or less to employ in worship under the presidency of the pastor or pastors, the gifts of the congregation."
- Robert Rainy
(Related: Church, Gifts, Practice, Presidency, Worship)
"We must make it an imperative duty of our government to protect the gifts which Nature has bestowed on America and to insure the maintenance of a clean, healthy, wholesome environment for our people."
- George Lincoln Rockwell
(Related: Government, Nature, People, America, Duty, Environment, Gifts)
"We Americans have the great gifts of freedom and democracy, but it has been our education system that has fulfilled the promise of democracy."
- James E. Rogers
(Related: Education, Americans, Democracy, Freedom, Gifts, Promise)
"When Courtney's mother and I first separated I tried to be Disney Dad, showering her with gifts, trips and then I snapped out of it. You don't have to try to impress your kids. If they're not getting what they need from you, they will let you know."
- Al Roker
(Related: Dad, Mother, Disney, First, Gifts, Kids, Will)
"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner."
- Jonas Salk
(Related: Work, Excitement, Gifts, Intuition, Sea, Will)
"More and more, unsolicited gifts from without are likely to be received with unconscious resentment."
- Edward Sapir
(Related: Gifts, Resentment, Unconscious)
"There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most."
- May Sarton
(Related: Gifts)
"I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader."
- Dick Schaap
(Related: Being, English, Gifts, Language)
"One of the greatest gifts of Black feminism to ourselves has been to make it a little easier simply to be Black and female."
- Barbara Smith
(Related: Feminism, Gifts)
"I think one of my greatest gifts is leading worship."
- Michael W. Smith
(Related: Gifts, Leading, Worship)
"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other."
- Carrie P. Snow
(Related: Technology, Gifts)
"The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest."
- Sophocles
(Related: Gods, Gifts, Mankind, Reason)
"But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless."
- Sophocles
(Related: Enemies, Gifts, Saying)
"Enemies' gifts are no gifts and do no good."
- Sophocles
(Related: Enemies, Gifts)
"Gifts make slaves."
- Levi Strauss
(Related: Gifts)
"All sorts of spiritual gifts come through privations, if they are accepted."
- Janet Erskine Stuart
(Related: Gifts, Spiritual)
"God touches and moves, warns and desires all equally, and He wants one quite as much as another. The inequality lies in the way in which His touch, His warnings, and His gifts are received."
- Johannes Tauler
(Related: God, Gifts, Inequality, Lies)
"Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied. Other guests are there, and He has to turn away. He cannot gain entry, for we love and desire other things; therefore, His gifts, which He is offering to everyone unceasingly, must remain outside."
- Johannes Tauler
(Related: Love, Soul, Desire, Gain, Gifts, Guests)
"The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
(Related: Gods, Gifts)
"There were no gifts. Everything is properly accounted for. I provided testimony and evidence to the committee... This was all stuff that was previously known."
- Robert Torricelli
(Related: Committee, Gifts)
"If you take all that I've learned from Joe and all that Joe has learned from me, and you throw all that into a song, not only are you using the gifts that God gave you, but also all the experiences you've had."
- Steven Tyler
(Related: God, Gifts, Song)
"Gifts fall from heaven only in fairy tales."
- Walter Ulbricht
(Related: Gifts, Heaven)
"Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts."
- Jean Vanier
(Related: People, Belief, Envy, Gifts, Ignorance)
"I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts."
- Virgil
(Related: Fear, Gifts)
"I've learned one important thing about God's gifts - what we do with them is our gift to Him."
- Robert Wagner
(Related: God, Gifts)
"The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence."
- Denis Waitley
(Related: Children, Independence, Gifts, Responsibility)
"When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons."
- John Webster
(Related: Gifts, Hell)
"Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie."
- Wim Wenders
(Related: Gifts, Today)
"I'll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth."
- Barry White
(Related: Wisdom, Truth, Knowledge, Gifts)
"I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts."
- Thornton Wilder
(Related: Childhood, Gifts)
"Our ministry is supported entirely by faith, through the missions gifts of readers who receive my messages every three weeks. We seldom mention money, and we never burden supporters."
- David Wilkerson
(Related: Faith, Money, Burden, Gifts)
"The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess."
- Carter G. Woodson
(Related: Inferiority, Superiority, Gifts, Race)
"Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue."
- Virginia Woolf
(Related: Humor, First, Gifts, Tongue)
"I'm grateful to God for His bountiful gifts... He gave me courage and faith in myself."
- Loretta Young
(Related: Faith, God, Courage, Gifts)
"Certainly tears are given to us to use. Like all good gifts, they should be used properly."
- Loretta Young
(Related: Gifts, Tears)