#gifts

What is in the pencil is greater than what is around it. The talents in you are greater than the environment surrounding you. Your potentials will change your environment. ↗

— Israelmore Ayivor

#believe #believe-and-achieve #change #christ-in-you #environment

It really is something ... that men disapprove even of our doing things that are patently good. Wouldn't it be possible for us just to banish these men from our lives, and escape their carping and jeering once and for all? Couldn't we live without them? Couldn't we earn our living and manage our affairs without help from them? Come on, let's wake up, and claim back our freedom, and the honour and dignity that they have usurped from us for so long. Do you think that if we really put our minds to it, we would be lacking the courage to defend ourselves, the strength to fend for ourselves, or the talents to earn our own living? Let's take our courage into our hands and do it, and then we can leave it up to them to mend their ways as much as they can: we shan't really care what the outcome is, just as long as we are no longer subjugated to them. ↗

— Moderata Fonte

#courage #dignity #empowerment #equality #feminism

Hence, when we ask anything of God and He begins to hear us, He so often goes counter to our petitions that we imagine He is more angry with us now than before we prayed, and that He intends not to grant us our requests at all. All this God does, because it is His way first to destroy and annihilate what is in us before He gives us His gifts; for so we read in I Samuel 2:6: “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.” Through this most gracious counsel He makes us fit for His gifts and works. Only then are we qualified for His works and counsels when our own plans have been demolished and our own works are destroyed and we have become purely passive in our relation to Him. ↗

— Martin Luther

#luther #imagination

Give freely to the world these gifts of love and compassion. Do not concern yourself with how much you receive in return, just know in your heart it will be returned. ↗

— Steve Maraboli

#gifts #giving #helping-others #inspirational #kindness

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

#any #beach #exchange #fireworks #fourth

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

#children #focus #gifts #greatest #greatest achievement

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

#begins #clear #clear vision #day #did

Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts and the purpose of our politics is to expand them, for all our people. ↗

— Ed Miliband

#freedom #gifts #opportunity #our #our people

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man. ↗

— Ben Okri

#always #bit #bore #challenging #completely

The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest. ↗

— Sophocles

#gods #good #highest #mankind #plant