Nature's Gift Quotes & Sayings

BREATHE
Mindful breathing is a basic wonderful pleasure for life. Breathing calms our body and mind to unify our soul within the present moment. Breathing is a supreme gift from Mother Nature, giving universal pranic energy which one guides within.

BELIEVE
Intentions, wishes and dreams can come true. Not necessarily all at once, but herein lies the splendour of life's journey. The secret tonic to success is belief and imagination, blended with confidence to open your heart and follow your dreams.

BE
Savadhyaya is the practice of inward reflection, honest self-observation and learning. Whatever you do, wherever you are, find contentment and simply be there, because that's exactly where you need to be. — Eva

Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it. — George R R Martin

Oh, nature's noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, Torn from the parent bird to form a pen, That mighty instrument of little men. — Lord Byron

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

Inner freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy object for the individual. — Albert Einstein

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

Among the many worlds which man did not receive as a gift of nature, but which he created with his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Every child, scrawling his first letters on his slate and attempting to read for the first time, in so doing, enters an artificial and complicated world; to know the laws and rules of this world completely and to practice them perfectly, no single human life is long enough. Without words, without writing, and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space in a single house or single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books. — Hermann Hesse

The pure whiteness, dazzling in the sun, was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Who was I to spoil it? Snow falls. Earth says: Here's a gift for you. And what do we do? We shovel it. Blow it. Scrape it. Plow it. Get it out of our way. We push it to our fringes. Is there anything uglier or sadder than a ten-day-old snow dump? It's not even snow anymore. It's slush. — Jerry Spinelli

But the boy had a gift. And it was in the nature of a gift that it be endlessly given. — Michael Chabon

Man i s given by Nature, a gift, and that gift is the privilege of labor. Through labor he learns all things. — Manly P. Hall

Among all the accomplishments of life none are so important as refinement; it is not, like beauty, a gift of Nature, and can only be acquired by cultivation and practice. — James Ellis

LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg "pate". — Ambrose Bierce

As a rich man sees no reason for rejoicing in a meager gift of bread until a turn of events leaves him impoverished, so the sinner finds no joy in salvation until the horrid nature of his sin is revealed and he sees himself as wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. — Paul David Washer

The gift moves towards the empty place. As it turns in its circle it turns towards him who has been empty-handed the longest, and if someone appears elsewhere whose need is greater it leaves its old channel and moves toward him. Our generosity may leave us empty, but our emptiness then pulls gently at the whole until the thing in motion returns to replenish us. Social nature abhors a vacuum. — Lewis Hyde

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate. — Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. — Benjamin Franklin

We humans are part of nature and whatever creative talents we might have come from nature and are part of nature's gift to us. — Marty Rubin

Liberation from prevailing conventions of thought, feeling and behaviour is accomplished most effectively by the practice of disinterested virtues and through direct insight into the real nature of ultimate reality. (Such insight is a gift, inherent in the individual; but, though inherent, it can not manifest itself completely except where certain conditions are fulfilled. The principle pre-condition of insight is, precisely, the practice of disinterested virtues.) — Aldous Huxley

The Grace represents the interconnection of everything, the world of life and the world of the dead, Additive and Subtractive, as well as the spark of the gift that runs though it all. The Grace does more though, than simply represent Additive and Subtractive magic, Creation and obliteration, life and death, it connects them into a cohesive whole. The power of Orden deals with life, death and the whole nature of existence so the key also needs to have both sides. It needs both Additive and Subtractive, life and death to be complete. — Terry Goodkind

Every public speaker likes his hearer to imagine his oratory as an unpremeditated gift of nature, and not the result of prolonged and patient study [Lionel Logue said] — Mark Logue

That was how we spoke, my mother and I: in puns and games and rhymes. In, you might say, lyrics. This was our tragedy. We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. We were tinpan alleycats, but the gift of music had been withheld. We could not sing along, though we always knew the words. Still, defiantly, we roared our tuneless roars, we fell off the high notes and were trampled by the low ones. And if bitter ices were the consequence, well, there were worse fates in the world than that. — Salman Rushdie

Her beauty was matchless, face so elegantly crafted that she appeared ethereal; unreal. But while nature had clearly bestowed the gift of physical perfection, it had not breathed the warmth of humanity into its creation. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

Death is a gift, so long as it is nature's hand. — Douglas Clegg

If in the least particular, one could derange the order of nature, who would accept the gift of life? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tom Dancer's gift of a whitebark pine cone

You never know
What opportunity
Is going to travel to you,
Or through you.

Once a friend gave me
A small pine cone-
One of a few
He found in the scat

Of a grizzly
In Utah maybe,
Or Wyoming.
I took it home

And did what I supposed
He was sure I would do-
I ate it,
Thinking

How it had traveled
Through that rough
And holy body.
It was crisp and sweet.

It was almost a prayer
Without words.
My gratitude, Tom Dancer,
For this gift of the world
I adore so much
And want to belong to.
And thank you too, great bear — Mary Oliver

Further, this human responsibility is in the first instance 'not...a task but a gift,...not law but grace'. It expresses itself in 'believing, responsive love' (p.98). So then, 'one who has understood the nature of responsibility has understood the nature of man. Responsibility is not an attribute, it is the "substance" of human existence. It contains everything..., [it is] that which distinguishes man from all other creatures....' (p.50). Therefore 'if responsibility be eliminated, the whole meaning of human existence disappears' (p.258). — John R.W. Stott

Buddha taught, "Breathing in, I recognize my feeling. Breathing out, I calm my feeling." If you practice this, not only will your feeling be calmed down but the energy of mindfulness will also help you see into the nature and roots of your anger. Mindfulness helps you be concentrated and look deeply. This is true meditation. The insight will come after some time of practice. You will see the truth about yourself and the truth about the person who you thought to be the cause of your suffering. This insight will release you from your anger and transform the roots of anger in you. The transformation in you will also help transform the other person. Mindful speaking can bring real happiness, and unmindful speech can kill. When someone tells us something that makes us happy, that is a wonderful gift. But sometimes someone says something to us that is so cruel and distressing that we feel like committing suicide. We lose our joie de vivre. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The system of fathers of the world church, the clergy system of the state church, and the pastoral system of the independent churches are all the same in nature. They are all Nicolaitans. In the Bible there are only brothers. There is the gift of a pastor, but no system of pastors. The pastoral system is man's tradition. If the children of God are not willing to return to the position of that in the beginning, no matter what they do, it will not be right. — Watchman Nee

I'll never see Ivy alive again.
But she's still everywhere. In every drop of bubbling swamp water. In every leaf hanging from every tree. In every speck of swamp mud. In every blade of grass. In every gift she left behind for me: two sacks of miscellaneous objects, a grass bracelet, her home, her love, and my life.
A swamp angel named Ivy lived in my backyard. And now she doesn't.
But wherever she is, I know she's watching me.
Just like the angel she's always been. — Colleen Boyd

Flowers are the gift to us from nature, out gift to nature is our love. — Debasish Mridha

Faith seeks understanding: The more we know, the more we want to know. We see this principle at work in many ways. In a distorted way we are all aware of things like greed, or addiction, or lust. When one gains a little of these, the tendency is to seek more. That's because these disorders are simply acting upon the natural design of our human nature to want more. But that natural design was made to want more of God! And only when we use this desire for more of God are we functioning in the way we were made. So with faith we see this at work. The more one knows God, personally, truly, intimately, the more one wants to know God, love God and be with God all the more. And there is no limit to how much the human soul can receive of this glorious Gift! So seek God and let the gift of His presence in your life stir up the desire for more. — My Catholic Life!

The buddhi [intellect] is today's gain, it is today's experience! Whereas, akkal [insight, wisdom] is a nature's gift! — Dada Bhagwan

My job as a writer is simple. Write a book I'm proud of, and present it as a gift to the world.
Some will love it.
Some will hate it.
That's the nature of art. — Kathleen Baldwin

There is nothing wrong with technology. It's a gift! I don't think we should keep our kids away from the modern conveniences of our time, but I do believe it's time to regain some balance. Children can benefit from technology, but they need nature. Let them have their video games and Internet, but make sure they are getting equal amounts of mud, dirt, sticks, puddles, free play and imagination. — Brooke Hampton

Virtue, the strength and beauty of the soul, Is the best gift of Heaven: a happiness That even above the smiles and frowns of fate Exalts great Nature's favourites: a wealth That ne'er encumbers, nor can be transferr'd. — John Armstrong

The idea of being the Substitute in offering an atonement to satisfy the demands of God's law for others was something Christ understood as His mission from the moment He entered this world and took upon Himself a human nature. He came from heaven as the gift of the Father for the express purpose of working out redemption as our Substitute, doing for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. — R.C. Sproul

Plan? He wanted alpha males to populate the planet by impregnating multiple partners, so he gave females the gift of irrationality, able to morph the least little thing that happens anywhere in the world into being your fault, especially if it's your fault. Watch any nature show. The top lion is perfectly happy with a lioness, but then he inexplicably moves on. Why? She was trying to change him ... . — Tim Dorsey

Since every evil is found in sin, either as a consequence or as the sin itself, when we want to pray wholeheartedly to get rid of evil, we should say, think, or mean this little word - sin, nothing else. No other words are needed. On the other hand, if we pray intently to get anything good, we should cry out in word, thought, or longing nothing but this word - God, nothing else. No other words are needed; for God's very nature is goodness, and he's the source of everything good. Don't spend time wondering why I chose these two words over all of the others. I looked into it and found none better. If I had, or if God had taught me different ones, I would have chosen them over these, but I can think of no shorter words that so well represent everything good or everything evil. Follow my example. Don't analyze words at length because studying them isn't the same as doing the work of contemplative prayer. Only grace gives this gift. — Anonymous

The nature of human beings is to eat meat and fruits and vegetables, and therefore we have to kill animals. I don't have a problem with that. But it's a sacred moment. It's a gift of life. — Eric Ripert

The greatest gift that humans have is the ability to think. Of all the creatures in the world, humans are physically the most ill-equipped. A human cannot fly like a bird, outrun a leopard, swim like an alligator, nor climb trees like a monkey. A human doesn't have the eyes of an eagle, nor the claws and teeth of a wild cat. Physically, humans are helpless and defenseless; a tiny insect can kill them. But nature is reasonable and kind. Nature's greatest gift to humankind is the ability to think. Humans can create their own environment, whereas animals have to adapt to their environment. — Shiv Khera

Flowers are nature's gift of love for you. — Debasish Mridha

It was the nature of his profession that his experience with death should be greater than for most and he said that while it was true that time heals bereavement it does so only at the cost of the slow extinction of those loved ones from the heart's memory which is the sole place of their abode then or now. Faces fade, voices dim. Seize them back, whispered the sepulturero. Speak with them. Call their names. Do this and do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift. — Cormac McCarthy

Dogs are a gift to mankind. They are happy and joyful and loyal by nature. They are pure, positive energy and teach by example. That is all that's required of them. — Alyson Noel

Mandelstam - his gift and the untamable nature of it - was like a thorn in Stalin's brain. — Christian Wiman

Each of us-adult or child-must earn nature's gift by knowing nature directly, however difficult it may be to glean that knowledge in an urban environment. — Richard Louv

[On Chopin's Preludes:]
His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky ... The gift of Chopin is [the expression of] the deepest and fullest feelings and emotions that have ever existed. He made a single instrument speak a language of infinity. He could often sum up, in ten lines that a child could play, poems of a boundless exaltation, dramas of unequalled power. — George Sand

Ever since childhood Yurii Andreievich had been fond of woods seen at evening against the setting sun. At such moments he felt as if he too were being pierced by shafts of light. It was as though the gift of the living spirit were streaming into his breast, piercing his being and coming out at his shoulders like a pair of wings. The archetype that is formed in every child for life and seems for ever after to be his inward face, his personality, awoke in him in its full primordial strength, and compelled nature, the forest, the afterglow, and everything else visible to be transfigured into a similarly primordial and all-embracing likeness of a girl. Closing his eyes, "Lara," he whispered and thought, addressing the whole of his life, all God's earth, all the sunlit space spread out before him. — Boris Pasternak

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift. — Albert Einstein

Sometimes love is a surprise, an instant of recognition, a sudden gift at a sudden moment that makes everything different from then on. Some people will say that's not love, that you can't really love someone you don't know. But, I'm not so sure. Love doesn't seem to follow a plan; it's not a series of steps. It can hit with the force of nature
an earthquake, a tidal wave, a storm of wild relentless energy that is beyond your simple attempts at control. — Deb Caletti

into art or music, how about that exhilarating moment when, during the 1982 Winter Olympics, the U.S. hockey team pulverized the Russians? Whether in front of the television, in the stands, or on the ice, we all became "one" in the euphoria of victory. My strong, he-man father once told me about a time he was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking Yellowstone Falls - with tears in his eyes, he described how he became one with the deafening roar of the water. If you have experienced any of this, it's an inkling of the joy that will overtake us when we take just one glance at the Lord of joy. We will lose ourselves in Him. We will become one with Him. We will be "in Christ," we will have "put on Christ" at the deepest, most profound and exhilarating level. The Lord's wedding gift to us will be the joy of sharing totally in His nature without us losing our identity; no, we shall receive our identity. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! — Joni Eareckson Tada

The first truth is the most basic affirmation of our faith: God loves us. This is not a general rule to which you, personally, may be an exception. It is not a conditional rule that applies only when you are good, pure, and lovable. God's passionate and personal love for each and every human being expresses who God is. Unfailing love is the divine nature and the divine choice in relation to us. God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality. It is a gift, a given.We cannot control whether God loves us by efforts to gain this love or even to lose it. Since we neither deserve nor earn such love, God's fondest dream is that we will receive and respond to it. — Marjorie, J. Thompson

Humankind's greatest gift is that we are indeterminate beings. Unlike the tough and leathery seed of an acorn, which will grow into a magnificent oak tree, none of us has a predetermined final configuration of our ultimate essence. Our mental temperament is pliable. We make conscious and subconscious choices that govern who we become. — Kilroy J. Oldster

That was the nature of presents. You kept them in the giver's stead. They were a small part of that person to keep. — Paul Magrs

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. — Charles Eisenstein

Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights. — Vandana Shiva

There are lot of things to be thankful for; the gift of life, the gift of a wife, the gift of a husband, the gift of parent, the gift of grandma, the gift of grandpa, the gift of family, the gift of children, the gift of relations, the gift of nature, the gift of friends, the gift of relatives, the gift of siblings, the gift cousins, the gift of aunties, the gift of niece, the gift of nephews, the gift of in-laws and many more. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It is altogether unlawful to kill oneself ... Wherefore suicide is contrary to the inclination of nature, and to charity whereby every man should love himself ... Life is God's gift to man, and is subject to His power, Who kills and makes to live. Hence whoever takes his own life, sins against God ... for it belongs to God alone to pronounce sentence of death and life. — Thomas Aquinas

Ready?" he asked. He motioned for her to look to the sky.
She'd been on enough long walks with her father to know it was time to open her mind. Their times in nature usually held a secret surprise. It could be anything, really - a rainbow touching the snow or heart-shaped shade cast by a pair of trees. Anything. Today, the gift was being outside the second it started to snow.
"Ooh, Daddy! Look, it's like a salt shaker!" She stuck her tongue out for the newborn snowflakes.
Blake followed her lead. Snow tasted sweeter with Emme around. — Debra Anastasia

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later year ... the alienation from the sources of our strength. — Rachel Carson

When we begin to love and respect Great Mother Nature's gift to us of gayness, we'll discover that the bondage of our childhood and adolescence in the trials and tribulations of neitherness was actually an apprenticeship for teaching her children new cutting edges of consciousness and social change. In stunning paradox, our neitherness is our talisman, our fairie wand, our gift we bring to the hetero world to ... transform their pain into healings; ... transform their tears to laughter: ... transform their hand-me-downs to visions of loveliness. — Harry Hay

It is an absolutely vain endeavor to attempt to reconstruct or even comprehend the nature of a human being by simply knowing the forces which have acted upon him. However deeply we should like to penetrate, however close we seem to be drawing to truth, one unknown quantity eludes us: man's primordial energy, his original self, that personality which was given him with the gift of life itself. On it rests man's true freedom; it alone determines his real character. — Wilhelm Von Humboldt

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself. — Flannery O'Connor

Embrace the gift of autumn; where every flower radiates its splendor. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Seating themselves on the greensward, they eat while the corks fly and there is talk, laughter and merriment, and perfect freedom, for the universe is their drawing room and the sun their lamp. Besides, they have appetite, Nature's special gift, which lends to such a meal a vivacity unknown indoors, however beautiful the surroundings. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

The most beautiful gift of nature is that it gives one pleasure to look around and try to comprehend what we see. — Albert Einstein

God blessed us with so many beautiful things around us 'NATURE' and then gave us the precious gift 'LIFE' to enjoy. So, why worried about future, Start 'To Live' because God chose you to experience the adventure of his own made world. — Manik Ghawri

I am in the habit of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Maketa Groves has a strong, bright lyric gift. Her poems come out of music and are full of music. They bring us the sounds of the streets and the sounds of nature, and make us see once again that they are parts of the same song. She celebrates American lives as they are lived today: the mother scrubbing her kitchen floor at midnight, the drag-queens in the Tenderloin, the homeless woman knitting in the courtyard. This is poetry that relentlessly shows us the beauty in the world, with all its struggles and complexity, and demands that we go out to meet it with open hearts. — Diane Di Prima

Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray. — Pope John Paul II

Give yourself the gift of nature as often as you can. — Wayne Dyer

Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, bearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life. - Pg. 82 — Robert Harris

The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God
others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man's nature. — Ayn Rand

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

A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want. — Jane Austen

The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return form the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth. Ailinon, alleluia! — Annie Dillard

Within Young Leaves Wrapped within young leaves: the sound of water. - SOSEKI This delicate observation by this Japanese poet is filled with the quiet hope that embedded in our nature, even as we begin, is our gift already unfolded. Embedded in the seed is the blossom. Embedded in the womb is the child fully grown. Embedded in the impulse to care is the peace of love realized. Embedded in the edge of risk and fear is the authenticity that makes life worth living. — Mark Nepo

Nature has not changed. The night is still unsullied, the stars still twinkle, and the wild thyme smells as sweetly now as it did then ... We may be afflicted and unhappy, but no one can take from us the sweet delight which is nature's gift to those who love her and her poetry. — George Sand

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

So passed away Sorrow the Undesired
that intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the social law; a waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who knew not that such things as years and centuries ever were; to whom the cottage interior was the universe, the week's weather climate, new-born babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human knowledge. — Thomas Hardy

The Holy Spirit gives us joy. And he is joy. Joy is the gift in which all the other gifts are included. It is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with ourselves, that which can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation. It belongs to the nature of joy to be radiant; it must communicate itself. The missionary spirit of the Church is none other than the impulse to communicate the joy which has been given. — Pope Benedict XVI

The genius inside a person wants activity. It's connected to the stars; it's connected to a spark and it wants to burn and it wants to make and it wants to create and it has gifts to give. That is the nature of inner genius. — Michael Meade

I think these nine months of pregnancy are a gift nature gives you to get you ready to be a mother. You couldn't be a mother without thinking about it. You want to be ready. Of course that influences you, but in a way I can't really explain. — Juana Molina

In the letter he left for the coroner he had explained his reasoning (for suicide): that life is a gift bestowed without anyone asking for it; that the thinking person has a philosophical duty to examine both the nature of life and the conditions it comes with; and that if this person decides to renounce the gift no one asks for, it is the moral and human duty to act on the consequences of that decision ... Alex showed me a clipping from the Cambridge Evening News. 'Tragic Death of "Promising" Young Man.' ... The verdict of the coroner's inquest had been that Adrian Flinn (22) had killed himself 'while the balance of his mind was disturbed.' ... The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide's reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the state which paid the coroner? — Julian Barnes

We did the usual beauty, grace, anti-dirt spell, voice of a songbird, the works ... it is never that kind of beauty that we gift. It is a spell. You are the most beautiful woman in the world to your true love. To everyone else, well ... that's up to nature. But, you are decently pretty. I don't know why you are complaining. — T.T. Escurel

He put his hand over my mouth. His hand felt warm, full of blood, the hand of a living man. "Death is a gift, so long as it is nature's hand. But this," he drew his hand away, and nodded toward the dead man in the grass. "When we are called back unnaturally, Death demands a price, for there is always a balance. If I am alive, then someone else must die before his time. This is what you have done. But he is the lucky one. He is at peace. I know what awaits him, and I envy him. — Douglas Clegg

A story of remarkable simplicity and charm. A young swimmer invites us into sea off the coast of California where through her eyes we see an entire realm of creatures we have never known so intimately before. Truly for people of all ages, Lynne Cox's adventure with the baby whale, Grayson, becomes a parable and an experience, thanks not only to the author's great and generous spirit, but through her immense gift for describing nature. — Anne Rice

To see is one of God's great gifts to man and to comprehend what we see is doubly so. Furthermore, He has endowed some people with the qualities to see the beauties of life and nature much more than others and they have the greatest gift of all. — Waite Phillips

There are women to whom nature has granted the gift of silent emotion. They have mobile faces, changeful eyes, soft lips, which express joy or desolation naturally, and with the charm of perfect simplicity and truth. — Sarah Doudney

Says a fine Greek adage, "is the gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom.") — Will Durant

But here's the rub of addiction. By its nature, people afflicted are unable to do what, from the outside, appears to be a simple solution - don't drink. Don't use drugs. In exchange for that one small sacrifice, you will be given a gift that other terminally ill people would give anything for: life. — David Sheff

Nature's beauty is a gift that cultivates appreciation and gratitude. — Louie Schwartzberg

Polly ended her lesson with the words she lived by: man is tender by nature, the rest is invented. Everyone applauded, even Bernice who was relieved that it was finally over. — K. Ford K.

Some people are gift givers by nature. They love their tribe, or they respect their art, and so they give. Not for an ulterior motive, but because it gives them joy. — Seth Godin

My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.
She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves - in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. — Nick Cave

As women, wea re given a great give: our purity. And everything that makes us who we are emotionally - our feminine nature, our sensitivity, our vulnerability, and our desire to give ourselves fully to one man - is part of that gift. Our purity is a treasure. it is so much more than just our physical virginity, it starts with who we are on the inside. — Leslie Ludy

The ultimate Mystery of being, the ultimate Truth, is Love. This is the essential structure of reality. When Dante spoke of the 'love which moves the sun and the other stars', he was not using a metaphor, but was describing the nature of reality. There is in Being an infinite desire to give itself in love and this gift of Self in love is for ever answered by a return of love ... and so the rhythm of the universe is created. — Venerable Bede

God gets me into a relationship with Himself whereby I understand His
call, then I do things out of sheer love for Him on my own account. To
serve God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the
call of God. — Oswald Chambers

Hope is magic. Hope is a gift. Hope is a raft we cling to in the midst of a storm. Hope by nature is an independent of logic. Hope is power outside of the facts.
The human mind longs for something better. Hope is not rational. Yet who need rationality when God is on our side? The capacity of hope is the most significant fact in life. — Tommy Tran

When one reads, and re-reads, Moby Dick, it seems to me that one gets a more convincing, a more definite, impression of the man than from anything one may learn of his life and circumstances; an impression of a man endowed by nature with a great gift blighted by an evil genius, so that, like the agave, no sooner had it put forth its splendid blooming than it withered; a moody, unhappy man tormented by instincts he shrank from with horror; a man conscious that the virtue had gone out of him, and embittered by failure and poverty; a man of heart craving for friendship, only to find that friendship too was vanity. Such, as I see him, was Herman Melville, a man whom one can only regard with deep compassion. — W. Somerset Maugham

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature. — Joseph Addison