Natural Gift Quotes & Sayings

Some people just have a natural gift and some people really have to work at it and I'm more of the second kind. I always had to grind it out, where from him it just flowed. — Ralph Reese

I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot. — Emma Donoghue

[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice. — Alexander Hamilton

The time is coming when all men will see that the gift of God to the soul is not a vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, buta sweet, natural goodness, a goodness like thine and mine, and that so invites thine and mine to be and to grow. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Talent is a gift, but our character is a choice. Talent is natural ability, our gift from God, but we have the power to determine our character. That power rests on a foundation consisting of the choices we make in life. And those choices almost always dictate the amount of trust others have in us, and to what level of leadership we rise. — John C. Maxwell

She never used large words, but she had a natural gift for making small ones do effective work. — Mark Twain

What law, what reason can deny that gift so sweet, so natural that God has given a stream, a fish, a beast, a bird? — Pedro Calderon De La Barca

It is the gift of all poets to find the commonplace astonishing, and the astonishing quite natural. — Margery Sharp

Little Phoebe was one of those persons who possess, as their exclusive patrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would acquire the home aspect by one night's lodging of such a woman, and would retain it long after her quiet figure had disappeared into the surrounding shade. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

As the gift of the Creator, natural healing power is ours. That's why no special method is needed for recovering it. There are no perfect methods, no matter how effective or powerful they may be. What is perfect is our sense of life itself. — Ilchi Lee

Having adventures comes natural to some people", said Anne serenely. "You just have a gift for them or you haven't. — L.M. Montgomery

Seskin has the gift of song ... his voice has a natural lilt that can't be learned. The combination of musicianship and repertoire make for a rich and satisfying musical experience. — Joel Selvin

What, actually, does it mean to be a tragic figure firmly in the grip of one's daimon? It means to possess great talent, to relentlessly pursue the expression of that talent through the unswerving affirmation of the causa-sui project that alone gives it birth and form. One is consumed by what he must do to express his gift. The passion of his character becomes inseparable from his dogma. Jung says the same thing beautifully when he concludes that Freud "must himself be so profoundly affected by the power of Eros that he actually wished to elevate it into a dogma...like a religious numen."
Eros is precisely the natural energy of the child's organism that will not let him rest, that keeps propelling him forward in a driven way while he fashions the lie of his character-which ironically permits that very drivenness to continue, but now under the illusion of self-control. — Ernest Becker

The poet should even act his story with the very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion. — Aristotle.

Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd. — Richard Whately

In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company. Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions; when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago, while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life - natural life - has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it? — C.S. Lewis

When we experience moments of ecstasy-in play, in art, in sex-they come not as an exception, an accident, but as a taste of what life is meant to be ... Ecstasy is an idea, a goal, but it can be the expectation of every day. Those times when we're grounded in our body, pure in our heart, clear in our mind, rooted in our soul, and suffused with the energy, the spirit of life, are our birthright. It's really not that hard to stop and luxuriate in the joy and wonder of being. Children do it all the time. It's a natural human gift that should be at the heart of our lives. — Gabrielle Roth

So it is that supernatural horror is the product of a profoundly divided species of being. It is not the pastime of even our closest relations in the wholly natural world: we gained it, as part of our gloomy inheritance, when we became what we are. Once awareness of the human predicament was achieved, we immediately took off in two directions, splitting ourselves down the middle. One half became dedicated to apologetics, even celebration, of our new toy of consciousness. The other half condemned and occasionally launched direct assaults on this gift. — Thomas Ligotti

A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. — A.A. Milne

In giving rise to man, the evolutionary process has, apparently for the first and only time in the history of the Cosmos, become conscious of itself.
So, the Devil's Chaplain might conclude, Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence; the gift of revulsion against its implications; the gift of foresight - something utterly foreign to the blundering short-term ways of natural selection - and the gift of internalizing the very cosmos. — Richard Dawkins

Around every corner is another gift waiting to surprise us, and it will surprise us if we can achieve control over our natural tendencies to make comparisons [to things that are better rather than things that are worse], to take things for granted [rather than imagining how much worse things would be if they weren't there and so feeling grateful], and to feel entitled! — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Putting is like wisdom - partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience. — Arnold Palmer

For me, singing is the most natural thing in the world. I've grown up with it and I know I've got that gift. — Stella McCartney

Trust that you have everything you need right now to be successful financially. All it takes to bring out your natural, God-given gifts is your desire, determination, and a deep faith that you have a genius and a gift that is unique. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

The way to plan the family is natural family planning not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self, and so it destroys the gift of life in him or her — Mother Teresa

The greatest hope, I say, is the one in which all the others are met, is that it is exists for everyone and that for everyone it lasts. That the absolute gift of one being to another, which can exist only in reciprocity, be in the eyes of everyone the only natural and supernatural hanging bridge cast across life itself. — Andre Breton

It turns out that creativity isn't some rare gift to be enjoyed by the lucky few - it's a natural part of human thinking and behavior. In too many of us it gets blocked. But it can be unblocked. And unblocking that creative spark can have far-reaching implications for yourself, your organization, and your community. — Tom Kelley

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I'm using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I'm happy with that. — Aretha Franklin

Love is a choice. That's why love it's one of gods commandments. People love because they trust. People trust because of faith. Love does have expectations. What we expect by love is eternity. We expect eternity because love is a choice, and you can choose to have it forever. The expectation of having love is a purpose to live, and a purpose to die. With out expectations, why would you love. The natural gift of love it's a purpose to live and happiness. That's why love it's worth dying for. With god or with out god in the picture, that's why love it's worth dying for. — Abraham Ruiz

I'm not sure I have a natural gift. I think it's just that some people have an easier time expressing their emotions, maybe because of the way they've been raised, and I've always been expressive. — Thomas Horn

One with more insight (sooj) is considered wise. To have more insight [sooj] is a natural gift. One may have more sooj but may have no intellect. — Dada Bhagwan

It is not easy to recognize, the talent of the individual who contributes to the lives of others by sharing a natural gift in everyday life. — Lydia Clar

It is all clearer now than it was then. Rhea would say it is the vivid fabrications of an ageing mind. More likely, though, it is the clarity that comes from ageing - from the natural process of releasing the mind from imagined futures, and allow the present and paste to take their rightful place at the centre of our attention. The past is palpable to Sheldon now, in the way the future is to the young. It is either a brief curse or a gift before oblivion. — Derek B. Miller

Jay-Z is more naturally gifted. He didn't depend as much as 50 did on his personal story. Jay-Z has a great story, he came from a pretty rough background. But 50's early success was so much fueled on the story and where he came from. With Jay-Z, I feel he has a more natural gift for language and for music itself. 50 really had to study and work at it much harder. — Robert Greene

The gift of creative reading, like all natural gifts, must be nourished or it will atrophy. And you nourish it, in much the same way you nourish the gift of writing - you read, think, talk, look, listen, hate, fear, love, weep - and bring all of your life like a sieve to what you read. That which is not worthy of your gift will quickly pass through, but the gold remains. — Katherine Paterson

If I slip up and receive a good gift, I will not have given a good gift. This is probably a natural law that affects us all and needs a name. The Gift Reciprocal Law. — Padgett Powell

The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most - for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? — Thomas Jefferson

Herein is a capital truth. It is not the natural capacity, the congenital gift, nor is it the effort, the will, the work, which in the intelligence as sway over the energy capable of making it fully efficacious. It is uniquely the desire, that is, the desire for beauty. This desire, given a certain degree of intensity and purity, is the same thing as genius. At all levels it is the same thing as attention. If this were understood, the whole conception of teaching would be quite other than it is. First, one would realize that the intelligence functions only in joy. Intelligence is perhaps even the only one of our faculties to which joy is indispensible. The absence of joy asphyxiates it. — Simone Weil

The land's fruitfulness is the "natural" consequence of covenant faithfulness enacted on both sides, Israel's and God's. A productive land is a gift something like a child to a healthy marriage; in each case, thriving results from and witnesses to long-sustained faithfulness between two partners. — Ellen F. Davis

As Pope Benedict writes in Caritas in Veritate: Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality.[2] — James Schall

Happy the man ... with a natural gift
for practising the right one [art] from the start
poetry, say, or fishing; whose nights are dreamless;
whose deep-sunk panoramas rise and pass
like daylight through the rod's eye or the nib's eye. — Seamus Heaney

The natural world around us shows the way to relief. All of life is maintained by the sun, by the air, by water, by the earth and its resources. And to whom was the sun given? To everyone. If there is any one thing that people do have in common, it is the gift of sunlight. But as the early Christians said, "If the sun were not hung so high, someone would have claimed it long ago." — Eberhard Arnold

We have too long treated the natural world as an adversary rather than as a life-sustaining gift from the Almighty. If man has the genius to build, which he has, he must also have the ability and the responsibility to preserve. — Gerald R. Ford

I get asked all the time, "What is a George Strait song?" I know it when I hear it. I don't seek a specific tempo or lyric or melody. It just has to make sense. Maybe it is natural because I was given the gift to sing. — George Strait

There are two kinds of faith. There is the natural faith. But the supernatural faith is the gift of God. — Smith Wigglesworth

The equality in political, industrial and social life which modern men must have in order to live, is not to be confounded with sameness. On the contrary, in our case, it is rather insistence upon the right of diversity; - upon the right of a human being to be a man even if he does not wear the same cut of vest, the same curl of hair or the same color of skin. Human equality does not even entail, as it is sometimes said, absolute equality of opportunity; for certainly the natural inequalities of inherent genius and varying gift make this a dubious phrase. But there is more and more clearly recognized minimum of opportunity and maximum of freedom to be, to move and to think, which the modern world denies to no being which it recognizes as a real man. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Singing has opened so many doors for me. And that's definitely a true passion of mine. It's a natural, God-given gift. — V. Bozeman

Now there is a spiritual selfishness which even poisons the good act of giving to another. Spiritual goods are greater than the material, and it is possible for me to love selfishly in the very act of depriving myself of material things for the benefit of another. If my gift is intended to bind him to me, to put him under an obligation, to exercise a kind of hidden moral tyranny over his soul, then in loving him I am really loving myself. And this is a greater and more insidious selfishness, since it traffics not in flesh and blood but in other persons' souls. Natural asceticism presents — Thomas Merton

Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. — Pope Benedict XVI

[I]t is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. — Samuel Adams

0 true and heavenly grace, without which our own merits are nothing, and our natural gifts of no account! Neither arts nor riches, beauty nor strength, genius nor eloquence have any value in Your eyes, Lord, unless allied to grace. For the gifts of nature are common to good men and bad alike, but grace or love are Your especial gift to those whom You choose, and those who are sealed with this are counted worthy of life everlasting. — Thomas A Kempis

But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men ... — Francis Bacon

I love Jo Malone. I got the Orange Blossom scent as a gift many years ago, and I fell in love with it. It's very light, natural, sweet. It's there but not that obvious. — Zhu Zhu

Magic is magic. It isn't good or bad in and of itself. It's the intent that matters. Ideally, you treat magic as a gift and you use it to influence natural forces to help and to heal. It's a positive act. — Dani Harper

I was born with a natural gift. My mother recognized the talent. — Bernie Worrell

Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own efforts. Only subjective goods - virtue, or contentment through resignation - are secure, and these alone, therefore, will be valued by the wise man. Diogenes personally was a man full of vigour, but his doctrine, like all those of the Hellenistic age, was one to appeal to weary men, in whom disappointment had destroyed natural zest. And it was certainly not a doctrine calculated to promote art or science or statesmanship, or any useful activity except one of protest against powerful evil. — Anonymous

I knew I had no lyrical quality, a small vocabulary, little gift of metaphor. The original and striking simile never occurred to me. Poetic flights ... were beyond my powers. On the other hand, I had an acute power of observation, and it seemed to me that I could see a great many things that other people missed. I could put down in clear terms what I saw ... I knew that I should never write as well as I could wish, but I thought, with pains, that I could arrive at writing as well as my natural defects allowed. — W. Somerset Maugham

We acknowledge, indeed, that Christ in human nature is called a Son, not like believers by gratuitous adoption merely, but the true, natural, and, therefore, only Son, this being the mark which distinguishes him from all others. Those of us who are regenerated to a new life God honours with the name of sons; the name of true and only-begotten Son he bestows on Christ alone. But how is he an only Son in so great a multitude of brethren, except that he possesses by nature what we acquire by gift? — John Calvin

Let us educate the younger generation to be shy in and out of season: to edge behind the furniture: to say spasmodic and ill-digested things: to twist their feet round the protective feet of sofas and armchairs: to feel that their hands belong to someone else
that they are objects, which they long to put down on some table away from themselves.
For shyness is the protective fluid within which our personalities are able to develop into natural shapes. Without this fluid the character becomes merely standardized or imitative: it is within the tender velvet sheath of shyness that the full flower of idiosyncrasy is nurtured: it is from this sheath alone that it can eventually unfold itself, coloured and undamaged. Let the shy understand, therefore, that their disability is not only an inconvenience, but also a privilege. Let them regard their shyness as a gift rather than as an affliction. Let them consider how intolerable are those of their contemporaries who are not also shy. — Harold Nicolson

There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like ... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm. — Demosthenes

I love being a pavement artist; seriously, I do. It's like when guys who would normally hate being freakishly tall discover basketball, or when girls with abnormally long fingers sit down at a piano. Blending in, going unseen, being a shadow in the sun is what I'm good at. Seeing the shadows, it turns out, is not my natural gift. — Ally Carter

I love Mix Tape. It combines three great elements - magic, music and a natural way of performing. I know that every time you perform Mix Tape you will feel like you're presenting someone with a very special gift. I've never come across a routine so natural and so strong. Use this and you will be the wonder worker they talk about long after you have left. — Luke Jermay

I see the way you look at him, and he looks at you. Don't question love, Iris. It may have come to you in an inconvenient form, one that society finds scandalous, but it's a gift from God. A reminder that this institution can't interfere with natural processes, like laughter, prayer, a dream that comes to you in sleep. Or love. Do with it what you want, but know it means God still sees you not as a lunatic but as His child. — Kathy Hepinstall

Accountability is the natural product of agency and is the basis of the plan of life. We are responsible for our own actions and accountable to God for what we choose to do with our lives. Life is God's gift to us, and what we do with it is our gift to him. — Elaine Cannon

[On married love]
This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.
It is a love which is total - that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself. — Pope Paul VI

Music lives in me. Life is a song to me. I have the gift of rhyme, and I'm always trying to write and rhyme. Music is just natural everyday occurrence with me. — Dolly Parton

Memory exercised in a particular way is a natural gift of poetic genius. The poet above all else, is a person who never forgets certain sense impressions which he has experienced and which he can relive again as though with all their original freshness. — Stephen Spender

We so easily forget that we came into life with nothing. Whatever we get soon seems our natural right, not a gift. And we forget the giver. Then our gaze shifts from what we have been given to what we dont have yet ... — Henry B. Eyring

It is a natural gift I was born with but it's something I've had to nurture in training. — Michael East

The simple gift of giving becomes an elaborate rich aftertaste of a natural blissful feeling, lingering endlessly in my lifetime. — Wes Adamson

The gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift of power. The Holy Ghost inspires and heals, guides and warns, enhances our natural capacities, inspires charity and humility, makes us smarter than we are, strengthens us during trials, testifies of the Father and the Son, and shows us "all things" that we should do. He helps us do more and become more than we could ever do or become on our own. — Sheri L. Dew

If some hole does not possess striking individuality through some gift of nature, it must be given as much as possible artificially, and the artifice must be introduced in so subtle a manner as to make it seem natural. — A. W. Tillinghast

The nature will continue, it's our existence that is finite and you are given this gift of life and you make your way with it, but fate and natural disasters will continue on. — Larry Fessenden

and their greatest gift is their extraordinary ability to heal people and the environment around them. They're natural mediators who have a talent for smoothing things over, and their knack for seeing both sides of a situation enables them to arrive at a harmonious outcome for all. Number 2s have big hearts and an enormous capacity to love. They thrive on connection and companionship and will do anything in their power to ensure that everyone feels happy and loved. — Michelle Buchanan

A number of neurotic ancestors, combined with with persistent, unresolved terrors of childhood, had deprived me of the comfortable gift of natural courage. — Vera Brittain

Ain't nothing to be shamed of. Having a baby is the most natural thing there is. The Good Book call children a gift from the Lord. And there ain't no place in that Bible of His that say babies is sinful. The sin is the fornicatin', and that's over and done with. God done forgave you of that a long time ago, and what's going on in your belly now ain't nothin' to hang your head about
you remember that. — Gloria Naylor

What is the purpose of my writing about the various experiences of my life? It is not for publicity, but with the hope that the reader, especially my descendants, may plan a career to which they are naturally best adapted. Most children are born with a gift or talent which can be noticed in early childhood and should be encouraged and directed in the right way. Solomon said, 'Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' Train does not mean compel, or to compare him with other children, but to encourage him in that for which he has a natural tendency. The boy who will become proficient in a lawful trade or profession, other things being favorable, will be a value to society and remunerative to himself and others. — Ernest Albert Law

When Mr. William Faraday sat down to write his memoirs after fifty-eight years of blameless inactivity he found the work of inscribing the history of his life almost as tedious as living it had been, and so, possessing a natural invention coupled with a gift for locating the easier path, he began to prevaricate a little upon the second page, working his way up to downright lying on the sixth and subsequent folios. — Margery Allingham

Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers).
How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around).
What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words. — Christopher Hitchens

California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries-and squandered that gift within a generation. — Victor Davis Hanson

Abraham saw God as Father. He proved Him to be the source of all things. Isaac received the inheritance as a son. It is a blessed thing to have a gift bestowed upon us by God. Yet even what we receive we may seize upon and spoil. Jacob attempted to do this, and was only saved from the consequences by having his natural strength undone. There must be a day in our experience when this happens. The characteristic of those who truly know God is that they have no faith in their own competence, no reliance upon themselves. When Jacob learned this lesson, then in truth there began to be an Israel of God ... — Watchman Nee

How admirable is the Western method of submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental verification! That empirical procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled me to sunder the silences of natural realms long uncommunicative. The telltale charts of my crescograph 49 are evidence for the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Mothers,fathers,our kind,tell me again that death doesn't matter.Tell me it's just a limitation of vision ,a fold of landscape,a deep flax-and-poppy-filled gully hidden on the hill, pleat in our perception a somersault of existence,natural,even beneficent even a gift,the only key to the red-lacquered door at the end of the hall,"water within water," those old stories. — Pattiann Rogers

Recognize that there's something AMAZING about you. Everyone has something that comes very natural for them - natural gifts and talents. That gift/talent is that thing or things that comes easy for you, but hard for most. The greatness that is stored within was given to you, because it was meant to be used. Whether you've been running from it or haven't discovered it yet, it's there. It's your job to discover and master it. It wasn't given to you in vain, it's part of your purpose. — Yvonne Pierre

If we could treat every natural resource as a gift rather than a commodity, we would be on the path to sustainability. The difference is that a gift does not belong to us but to the universe. It comes into our lives from a source that is unknown and ultimately unknowable; eventually , it returns to its source. — Victor Shamas

If anyone is going to see the gospel as true and good, satanic blindness and natural deadness must be overcome by the power of God. This is why the Bible says that even though the gospel foolishness to many, yet 'to those who are called ... Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24). The 'calling' is the merciful act of God to remove natural deadness and satanic blindness, so that we see Christ as true and good. The merciful act is itself a blood-bought gift of Christ. Look to him, and pray that God would enable you to see and embrace the gospel of Christ. — John Piper

To explain this a little further: Only the soul and the body are the natural constituent parts of men and women. The SPIRIT is not in the fundamental nature of humans but is the supernatural gift of God, TO BE FOUND IN CHRISTIANS ONLY. — John Wesley

Death is natural and necessary, but not just. It is a random force of nature; survival is equally accidental. Each loss is an occasion to remember that survival is a gift. — Harriet McBryde Johnson

What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve. — Johann Sebastian Bach

I hear the chipper voice of the Church magazines chirping in my brain: You're in a relationship with a boy who treats you as his emotional and spiritual equal. You feel a desire to express your affection through physical acts that will bring mutual pleasure. Do you (a) go for it! Sex is a natural gift from God, and a lot of fun so long as you do it safely!; (b) get him to propose! Sex is only fun if you do it in a Church of America-approved union! Plus, babies are so cute!; or (c) seek guidance from your local pastor for your sinful thoughts and ask for tips on expressing your love in a holy, nonphysical way? TRICK QUESTION! The answer is (d) the fact that you even momentarily considered having sex out of wedlock proves that you have no place in God's eternal kingdom, you reprehensible slut. — Katie Coyle

I have never really believed that acting is very difficult. I think some people have a skill and are able to act, and if you have that natural gift, it's not difficult. — Mark Strickson

Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren't looking because you were trying to stay alive. In the face of such loss, one thing our people could not surrender was the meaning of land. In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold. These are the meanings people took with them when they were forced from their ancient homelands to new places. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

The tribal life wasn't something humans sat down and figured out. It was the gift of natural selection, a proven success - not perfection but hard to improve on. Hierarchalism, on the other hand, has proven to be not merely imperfect but ultimately catastrophic for the earth and for us. When the plane's going down and someone offers you a parachute, you don't demand to see the warranty. — Daniel Quinn

In the discovery of lemmas the best aid is a mental aptitude for it. For we may see many who are quick at solutions and yet do not work by method ; thus Cratistus in our time was able to obtain the required result from first principles, and those the fewest possible, but it was his natural gift which helped him to the discovery. — Proclus

When this love, the heavenly gift of Nature, appears in the heart, it removes all causes of excitation from the system and cools it down to a perfectly normal state; and invigorating the vital powers, expels all foreign matters- the germs of diseases-by natural ways (perspiration and so forth). It thereby makes man perfectly healthy in body and mind, And enables him to understand properly the guidance of Nature. — Sri Yukteswar Giri

I had no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me. — Paul Newman

The most mesmerizing of artists is always like one who was merely drawing in the sand and people came to watch. — Criss Jami

We do not have even 1 percent of that kind of power. Rather, we have 100 percent of the natural freedom that God deemed appropriate to the creatures he made in his own image. Instead of pieces rationed between God (a larger portion) and creatures (a smaller portion), God has his "pie" (sovereign, Creator-style freedom) and we have our own as well from him (dependent, creature-style freedom). Our freedom is like his, but always with greater difference. "In him we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28), so even our ability to think, will, and act is dependent on God's sovereign gift. — Michael S. Horton

The natural world is a gift that we have the obligation to treasure and use carefully. It is our moral responsibility to protect it from damage, and to pass it on to our heirs in good condition. To do less is to dishonor the Giver and the gift. — Frederick Victor Grey Wymark

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus said that He would give us the keys to the Kingdom. Faith is the major key that opens every door in the Kingdom. It is a master key. Therefore it is imperative that we understand the ways of faith. Because these keys are the ways of God the natural man cannot receive them. They are spiritually understood. They are foolishness to the natural man. When a gift of the Spirit operates. Then we are able to impart that gift to others and teach them how to function in it also. — Phil Pringle