c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
There are portions of the sovereign people who spend most of their spare time and spare money on motoring and comparing motor cars, on bridge-whist and post-mortems, on moving pictures and potboilers, talking always to the same people with minute variations on the same old themes. They cannot really be said to suffer from censorship, or secrecy, the high cost or the difficulty of communication. They suffer from anemia, from lack of appetite and curiosity for the human scene. Theirs is no problem of access to the world outside. Worlds of interest are waiting for them to explore, and they do not enter.
— Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion
…a bar he sometimes sneaked into called The Slab. (They served bloody marys and zombies – stiff drinks they called them – and the jukebox only played dirges. A spotlight pinned dead go-go boys in cages, and though he’d never ventured to the refrigerated back room, he’d heard stories.)
— Robert Dunbar, Martyrs and Monsters
He IS just a normal boy.
— Molly Looby, ZA
If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say that they're tired of a genre (zombies) because it's only a fad, I'd be rich. #DeadRising
— Ace Antonio Hall
If I could make one wish, I wouldn't ask for world peace. I'd wish for a real zombie apocalypse. I'll take Romero zombies any day over this counterfeit harmony bullshit.
— J. Cornell Michel, Zombie Zeitgeist
Eleanor," Daniel said. "Miss Fitt! Wake up!"I fluttered my eyelids open. "I'm not a misfit anymore," I rasped. "I thought I told you that.
— Susan Dennard, Something Strange and Deadly
Everything good or bad in my life had started and ended within the limits of that town. It was over now, though, and a new chapter was beginning. Nothing would ever be the same as it had been before. I just hoped this chapter wouldn't be the final one in the book.
— Rose Wynters, Phase One: Identify
Mia,' she whispered. I turned around. 'What?' I whispered back.She smiled at me a little. 'LEEERRROOOY JEEENNKKIINNNSS!' she shouted, then spun around and ran toward the Z's in the lighting section.
— John Green, Zombicorns
Happy but isn't the human factor what connexus a deeply to our past will future generations care as much for chronologies and casualty statistics as they would for the personal accounts of individuals not so different from themselves.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Son of a Merryweather, he’s a lot stronger than he looks.
— Nicki Elson, Hans & Greta: a Twisted Fairy Tale Novella
He pinched the remaining chapters’ pages delicately between his fingers and sighed. He always hated reaching the end of a good book.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
As any avid reader knew, a good read deserved a good seat.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
You can't take highways during the apocalypse, because they'll be packed with panicky people.
— J. Cornell Michel, Jordan's Brains: A Zombie Evolution
I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty women can bestow.' Miss Bingley immediately fixated her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied:'Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
There was one thing no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. While the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile environment for centuries. They looked upon our zombie apocalypse, and they were not impressed.
— Mira Grant, How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea
To think that she had read the same elegiac prose he now beheld with such quiet awe made his heart sing.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
... Will you be okay or is there something I could help you with?""I'm just going to change in to comfy clothes and hit the sheets.""And what's the verdict on whether or not you want my help with that?" He flashed a cocky smile at me. He was undeniably sexy, in an "I-have-poison-blood-in-my-veins" sort of way.
— Kelly Hashway, Touch of Death
The burning red taste of blood floods my mouth. The sparkle of life sprays out of his cells like citrus mist from an orange peel, and I suck it in.
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
Can’t call ‘em zombies anymore,” sighed Manny. He seemed almost wistful. “Now we gotta be all politically correct. It’s like the Cold Wars never happened.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
Even in death she was more beautiful to him than she ever was alive.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
The sooner the rebirth, the prettier the corpse.
— David S.E. Zapanta, Posthumous
People could say a lot of negative things about the apocalypse, but there was no arguing the air quality in Los Angeles had really improved.
— Peter Clines, Ex-Heroes
I promise not to hurt you, unless you try to take my shit. Then I'll twist your head off and hide it in a bush somewhere.
— Cedric Nye, The Road to Hell is Paved With Zombies
Our virus is a lot smarter than the ones you see in zombie movies. It doesn't make its victims stagger around slobbering and moaning so anyone in their right minds would run the other way. It gets you cozying up to people so you cough and sneeze it right into their faces. We just need the vaccine. Then we'll be okay.
— Megan Crewe, The Way We Fall
The truth was, neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor any of the other official and unofficial U.S. intelligence organizations have ever been some kind of all-seeing, all-knowing, global illuminati. For starters, we never hand that kind of funding.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Which got me to wondering whether it’s possible to learn how to be a person in a world where all the people are dead.
— John Green, Zombicorns
...So I put it out of its misery, if it really was miserable, and tried not to think about it. That was another thing they taught us at Willow Creek: don't write their eulogy, don't try to imagine who they used to be, how they came to be here, how they came to be this. I know, who doesn't do that, right? Who doesn't look at one of those things and just naturally start to wonder? It's like reading the last page of a book... your imagination just naturally spinning. And that's when you get distracted, get sloppy, let your guard down and end up leaving someone else to wonder what happened to you.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
I think I remember what love was like before. There were complex emotional and biological factors. We had elaborate tests to pass, connections to forge, ups and downs and tears and whirlwinds. It was an ordeal, an exercise in agony, but it was alive. The new love is simpler. Easier. But small.
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
If you can cut the head off of this broom-goober with that sword, then I'll believe you can gank zombies with it.
— Cedric Nye, The Road to Hell is Paved With Zombies
I could not be a zombie. They had no thoughts. Their brains were gruel. They said little beyond "Brrr!" unable, even, to articulate completely what they sought."Brains,"I said distinctly. "And I feel no burning urge to partake of any." Forsooth, the idea sent a wave of nausea through me. Therefore I was not a zombie.
— Lori Handeland, Zombie Island
I continued toward Atlanta with a Merle Haggard C.D. playing on the stereo. They weren't great hosts, but those guys in The Ted Kaczynski Fan Club had great taste in music. It was all classic country music- none of that sissy, boy-band country that they played on the radio all the time. I drove down the road while Merle preferred to just stay where he was and drink.
— Ian  McClellan, Zombie Apocalypse 2012: A Political Horror Story
I don't like zombie movies, they're just plain silly.
— Wayne Gerard Trotman
A tomb is a vault, a vault is a home,” Mr. Sadlot said casually sniffing the flower in his lapel. “That’s where the deceased chose to reside and that is where he will be placed.” Kekaju and the Hidden Swamp
— Robert W Sweeting
I would like my life to be a movie so I could cut to a montage.
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
And to those who would choose the safety of inaction over the danger of taking a stand, I have this to say:You bloody cowards. May you have the world that you deserve.
— Mira Grant, Deadline
How do I appear unthreatening when her lover's blood is running down my chin?
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
I feel the flatline of my existence disrupting, forming heartbeat hills and valleys
— Isaac Marion
She hugs me. It's tentative at first, a little scared, and yes, a little repulsed, but then she melts into it. She rests her head against my cold neck and embraces me. Unable to believer what's happening, I put my arm around her and just hold her.I almost swear I can feel my heart thumping. But it must just be hers, pressed tightly against my chest.
— Isaac Marion
Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead?Or do we just have nothing left to say?
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
Fucking GUNS are fucking AWESOME and when you SHOOT them at SHIT, they fucking KILL it!
— Shamus McCarty, Texas Biker Zombies From Outer Space
Zombies are the liberal nightmare. Here you have the masses, whom you would love to love, appearing at your front door with their faces falling off; and you’re trying to be as humane as you possibly can, but they are, after all, eating the cat. And the fear of mass activity, of mindlessness on a national scale, underlies my fear of zombies.
— Clive Barker
If you want to go foraging into the wilds of Canada without proper gear, you deserve what you get, even if that happens to include being attacked by an undead moose.
— Mira Grant, Feed
Hands and lips and teeth, and you'd forgotten-no, you'd never known-this way of knowing someone, this dissolution of self, this autophagy.
— Alaya Dawn Johnson, Zombies Vs. Unicorns
But no matter what happens to the surviving humans, there will always be the walking dead.
— Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
I'd like to sit down with him and pick his brain, just a tiny bite somewhere in the frontal lobe to get a taste of his thoughts" -Warm Bodies
— Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
What did the zombie say to the whore? Keep the tip!
— Diana Rowland, My Life as a White Trash Zombie
What makes us the strongest tribe on the continent is the fact that a group that opposes these values--a group that would have mankind remain in the new dark ages--is permitted to grow, permitted to exist...and, after it becomes a violent terrorist organization, is allowed to live on it own lands, taken out of the lands of those it has attacked and continues to attack!" He had to stop speaking then--the applause was louder than even his amplified voice. "They expect that fear will drive us to become like them...closed-minded, blind, angry. Our society will remain open and free so long as I am standing upright," he continued, once the applause died down.
— Lia Habel, Dearly, Departed
The conversation limped along this line of thought much like a zombie: lifeless and mindless and making a jelly of whatever healthy brains were within its reach.
— Steve Hockensmith, Dawn of the Dreadfuls
I’m alive; I’m not gonna try eating your ass, okay? Don’t shoot!” “What… Eat my ASS?”“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.
— Shamus McCarty, Texas Biker Zombies From Outer Space
He's a ghost, not a carnival magician.-Benny Imura
— Jonathan Maberry, Flesh & Bone
Mark Spitz had met plenty of the divine-retribution folks over the months. This was their moment; they were umbrella salesmen standing outside a subway entrance in a downpour. The human race deserved the plague, we brought it on ourselves for poisoning the planet, for the Death of God, the calculated brutalities of the global economic system, for driving primordial species to extinction: the entire collapse of values as evidenced by everything from nuclear fission to reality television to alternate side of the street parking. Mark Spitz could only endure these harangues for a minute or two before he split. It was boring.The plague was the plague. You were wearing galoshes, or you weren't.
— Colson Whitehead, Zone One
And then, anger gave way to pure and simple job satisfaction. I mean, when I looked at a dead zombie head on a spike, I thought, "Hey, I did that. Picasso would have been proud. Especially how I rearranged that eye
— Jesse Petersen
It is meant to be survival of the fittest, not survival of the most floral.
— Stephen Herfst, Zed
Goons were the lowest sort of homunculi, only superior to zombies.
— Lita Burke, Ephraim's Curious Device
When approaching a prospective human, first ask them what their name is. * If it replies "Brains," blow its fucking head off. * If it replies "Brian," ask it again, as you may have encountered a zombie with a speech impediment, or a zombie that was mildly retarded in life. * Keep in mind that it is entirely possible that you did encounter a human named "Brian.
— Shamus McCarty, The Zombie Survival Guide: How To Live Like A King After The Outbreak
Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-seven years: with an idiot—in this case, Rebecca Atherton, head of the After the End Times Irwins, winner of the Golden Steve-o Award for valor in the face of the undead—deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.
— Mira Grant, Deadline
My story ended where so many stories have ended since the Rising: with a man—in this case, my adoptive brother and best friend, Shaun—holding a gun to the base of my skull as the virus in my blood betrayed me, transforming me from a thinking human being into something better suited to a horror movie.
— Mira Grant, Blackout
Jett Gallatin expected trouble in Alsop, Texas—but not zombies.
— Mercedes Lackey, Dead Reckoning
All of Europe, as far as we knew, was gone. It might as well not be there anymore. Russia was gone. By the time you got to wondering where America went there just wasn't any more room for it in your brain. A world without America just couldn't happen - the global economy would collapse. Every two penny warlord and dictator in the Third World would have a field day. It just wasn't possible. It would mean global chaos. It would mean the of history as we knew it. Which was exactly what happened.
— David Wellington, Monster Island
You know,” I fold my arms over my chest. “You’re quite annoying, but I guess your company is better than no company.” Keegan presses his arm against the wall beside my head and smiles. His curly black hair stands out against his pale skin. The slightest bit of sunlight finds its way inside the patio, reflecting upon his icy green eyes. His light pink lips turn up in a smile. With his mouth closed, he is actually quite attractive.
— Nicole Sobon, The Yearning
Maybe they’re not as mindless as we thought, or so dedicated to turning every last human into one of them. Like Kalyn says, they were just bored, waiting for something better to happen.And that better thing is us.
— Scott Westerfeld
No, we wern't telling Teresa. Because she had that same smell on her skin too, that dead hoocow's awful sterile rot, and until I had some answers to throw in her face I was pretending everything was fine.
— Joan Frances Turner, Dust
Nine years ago I was alive. Nine years ago Jessica Anne Porter was fifteen years old.
— Joan Frances Turner, Dust
You can always tell what kind of a person a man really thinks you are by the earrings he gives you.
— Audrey Hepburn
A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.
— Seneca, Moral Essays: Volume III
A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.
— Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
They always gives me bath salts," complained Nobby. "And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?
— Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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
When a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment.
— Gene Wolfe, Shadow & Claw
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Remember, there are more people in the world than yourself. Be modest! You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before. And should you really have done so, consider it a gift of heaven which you are to share with others.
— Robert Schumann
Anybody who has had a great treasure has always led a precarious existence.
— John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids
oh well, is it hurting anyone? Because if its not and you’ve been given it, I’d as soon stop calling it a thing and start referring to it as a gift.
— Cecelia Ahern, Thanks for the Memories
Don't be ungrateful. Just open it.
— Alice Clayton, Wallbanger
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
— Jerome, The Principal Works of St. Jerome
In this city [Palermo] . . . it's the souls of the dead who bring presents to the children. . . . We go to the cemetery to ask the dead for toys.
— Gianni Riotta, Prince of the Clouds
All other businesses we do for living and for leaving good and great footprints are good! In fact, we must not let our gifts and talents be idle, but in all our endeavors we must not forget that there is one more noble business than any, and that is touching and saving lives for the Kingdom of God, in truth and in spirit, and proclaiming the coming of Jesus Christ with all due diligence, understanding, humility, courage and fortitude!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Cited from Chuck Palahniuk, 2003 - do not suffer do not rejoice, be not complimented or offended by such gifts. Judge not, lest ye be judged (Ejump, 2017)
— ejump - 2017
At least you've brought gifts. What's in the basket?"She rummaged through the contents. "A few sweetmeats and lozenges. Packets of raisins. But mostly it's Aunt Thea's surplus cosmetics and remedies. She sends away for every product advertised in every ladies' magazine. I like to see them put to some use."He blinked at her. "These are your gifts?""Your men have depleted our stores of food, and I didn't have time to prepare anything else.""What are they supposed to do with-" he held up a brown bottle and peered at the label- "Dr. Jacobs' Miracle Elixir?" He plucked a small jar out next. "Excelsior Blemish Cream?""Women are women, Logan. Every girl needs a bit of luxury and a chance to feel pretty now and then.
— Tessa Dare, When a Scot Ties the Knot
Peter, Adam's Son," said Father Christmas."Here, sir," said Peter."These are your presents," was the answer, "and they are tools, not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well." With these words he handed to Peter a shield and a sword. The shield was the color of silver and across it there ramped a red lion, as bright as a ripe strawberry at the moment when you pick it. The hilt of the sword was of gold and it had a sheath and a sword belt and everything it needed, and it was just the right size and weight for Peter to use. Peter was silent and solemn as he received these gifts, for he felt they were a very serious kind of present."Susan, Eve's Daughter," said Father Christmas. "These are for you," and he handed her a bow and a quiver full of arrows and a little ivory horn. "You must use the bow only in great need," he said, "for I do not mean you to fight in the battle. It does not easily miss. And when you put this horn to your lips and blow it, then, wherever you are, I think help of some kind will come to you."Last of all he said, "Lucy, Eve's Daughter," and Lucy came forward. He gave her a little bottle of what looked like glass (but people said afterwards that it was made of diamond) and a small dagger. "In this bottle," he said, "there is a cordial made of the juice of one of the fire-flowers that grow on the mountains of the sun. If you or any of your friends is hurt, a few drops of this will restore them. And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle.""Why, sir?" said Lucy. "I think- I don't know- but I think I could be brave enough.""That is not the point," he said. "But battles are ugly when women fight.
— C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
God has given us all different abilities and gifts, so that through them we can bring God’s love and His presence into the land where we are called
— Sunday Adelaja
There is no greater gift like LOVE.
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The items people own reveal something about the owners. Every quaint item that a person selects to surround themselves with has a basic quiddity, the essence, or inherent nature of things. As a people, we assign a value meaning not only to the things that we presently possess, but also to the items destined for one generation to hand down to the next generation.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Shed the yesteryears, embrace the present as a gift and the future as a possibility
— Val Uchendu
You don't wear jewelry, do you? Besides your wedding ring, I mean?''Now often. If is not that I disapprove. I simply don't take the time to bother with it. I've been given a few trinkets over the years, but rarely wear them.' Thora looked down at her hand, the plain thin wedding band, the unadorned wrist, and a memory struck her. She said, 'Frank gave me a gift once - a find gold bracelet with a blue enamel heart dangling from it. He said it was to remind me that I was more than his helpmeet and housekeeper, but also an attractive woman. I was sure I'd break the delicate chain, and the heart clacked against the desk whenever I wrote in the ledger. So I put it back in its box, and there it has remained ever since.'Nan said gently, 'We've all been given gifts, Thors, and ought not to hide them away. They remind us that we are blessed and loved. They give pleasure to those who see them - especially to the one who bestowed the gift in the first place.
— Julie Klassen, The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill
But...what makes you Nathan--what makes you so special--is that you are both White Witch and Black Witch, both dark and full of light. That's what I love about you. What I've always loved. And I love you still, Nathan, and I know I always will. But you're changing. And now...now what I fear is that you'll get the amulet and you'll hone the Gifts you took from your father. You'll be invulnerable and you'll kill more people, many, many more people. I fear you won't be able to stop and you'll lose yourself completely. And then I'll come to dread you too.
— Sally Green, Half Lost
I had thought that my being would collapse when I gifted my soul', said Neville. 'Why is it then that I still breathe, and feel, and move?' 'Because,' said Mary, 'when you gift something wholly and completely and unhesitatingly it returns to you doublefold.
— Sara Douglass, The Crippled Angel
In symbolic exchange, of which the gift is our most proximate illustration, the object is not an object: it is inseparable from the concrete relation in which it is exchanged, the transferential pact that it seals between two persons: it is thus not independent as such. It has, properly speaking, neither use value nor (economic) exchange value. The object given has symbolic exchange value.
— Jean Baudrillard, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign
He always felt embarrassed opening gifts in front of others, having to act out delight or surprise. He liked to peel off the paper slowly and consider the contents.
— Phaedra Patrick, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
Unexpected gifts were better accepted when they were presented by total strangers, I had learnt.
— Vann Chow, Shanghai Fools
Life's Irony; It is not only the poor that needs gifts, the rich also love to be gifted.
— Auliq Ice
gifts — that strange word, a signifier meaning disappointment you can hold in your hands.
— Jeanette Winterson, Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
Oreos come in packages. Otherwise known as a gift. Cherish it.
— Oreo Queen
The truer you are to yourself, the greater your gifts will manifest themselves.
— Tiffany L. Jackson, 12 Keys to Success for Misfits, Weirdos & Introverts: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Understanding Your Place in the World
Try - now's gift.
— H.L. Balcomb, Cinderella In Focus: "Curiosity is the doorway to our personal possibility!" 2nd Edition coming Oct.  31, 2017
Your work is what you were born to do. No kind of educational system can teach you your true work, because it is your life purpose, and it is revealed by your God-given gifts.
— Dr. Myles Munroe
If you wish to see God; look people in the eye, listen to them, and see how they treat other people.
— stacy snapp killian: StacyK
God has hidden in each and every one of us so many abilities, gifts and resources that could only be activated by work.
— Sunday Adelaja
But then, gifts are like beauty, are they not. It is in the eye of the recipient that they find their seat, not in the hand of the giver.
— J.R. Ward, Lover Unbound
Love is a gift. One that doesn't need to be returned, just accepted.
— Kelly Moran, All of Me
There! I can’t fix the whole country, and it will only last a few days, but I present you with the sun, on behalf of my dreadfully boring magic.”He bows low, holding out his hand. I reach out tentatively, afraid of being burned, but the globe merely hovers above my hand where I slide it on top of Finn’s. It’s golden and deliciously warm and instantly makes me happier and more at ease than I’ve been in weeks.I laugh, delighted, and by the look on Finn’s face you’d think I was the one who had given him an absurd and wonderful gift.
— Kiersten White, Illusions of Fate
Every good gift and every perfect present comes from God. He is out Father who will always love His children.
— Pazaria Smith
Sometimes the best thing about us isn’t what we’re gifted with, but what we can make others feel just by our very nature of existing.
— Sarah Noffke, Defects
How generously they shower us with food, literally giving themselves so that we can live. But in the giving their lives are also ensured. Our taking returns benefit to them in the circle of life making life, the chain of reciprocity. Living by the precepts of the Honorable Harvest—to take only what is given, to use it well, to be grateful for the gift, and to reciprocate the gift
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
That is the fundamental nature of gifts: they move, and their value increases with their passage.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
The gifts of God that are hidden within us are designed not only for our own needs but also forthe needs of others.
— Sunday Adelaja
God gives abilities, talents and gifts to help you get established in your territory.
— Sunday Adelaja
Somebody should have warned the Trojans. Beware of gifts bearing Greeks.
— David Gerrold, A Matter for Men
If a gift has come to you wrapped in obligations and tied tightly with a ribbon of guilt, then it's not really a gift at all. It's a manipulation. A gift should be something freely given that enhances your life and reminds you lovingly of the giver. If it's not, you simply should not give it a place in your home.
— Peter Walsh
The gift blesses the giver.
— Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Sometimes the best gifts aren't convenient at the time.
— Regina Jennings, A Most Inconvenient Marriage
We will never outrun the nagging of original divinely inspired purpose.
— T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
No, that was my privilege.
— Dodie Smith
Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them them than we are of breathing.
— Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
I wish I could wrap up the glitter star-green of this moment and hand it to you like an angel gift. Give you the heat lightning flying in jagged silence over the distant mountains. And the smell of September prairie grass and the even fainter scent of October pine now descending . . .
— Carew Papritz, The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift
We collected all the bones we could find, and yesterday, Natividad wrapped them in a shawl that she had knitted years ago. It was the most beautiful thing she owned."A thing like that should serve the living," Bankole said when she offered it."You are living," Natividad said. "I like you. I wish I could have met your sister.
— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
What are the gifts given to we who live Below?""Long life, health, strength, and happiness.""What is the curse of those who live Above?""Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.""Is this fair?""It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.""Then give thanks.
— Ally Condie, Atlantia
Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough. Make gifts for people — and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts.Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t — and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating. But, ultimately, that doesn't change anything — because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.
— John Green
You don't give a gift to shape someone into the person you want him to be. You give a gift because it's something you couldn't bear to be without, but it's even more unthinkable for the other person to be without it.
— Will Chancellor, A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall
It is customary for those who wish to have the most beautiful ones to endeavourer to offer them gifts of those things which they hold most precious in order to win their hearts.
— Auliq Ice
...crossed the room to where a selection of implements was arranged on a table top. These could have been mistaken for the trade tools of a cook, physician, or torturer, save for the fact that the surface on which they rested was a slab of polished pink marble, topping a white and gilt dressing table-cum-sculpture, done up in the new, hyper-Baroque style named Rococo. It was adorned, for example, with several cherubs, bows drawn, eyes asquint, as they drew beads on unseen targets, butt cheeks polished to a luster with jeweler’s rouge. It had, in other words, all the earmarks of a gift that had been sent to the princess by someone with a lot of money who did not know her very well.
— Neal Stephenson
When you find real love — protect and preserve the sweetness and intimacy of your gift.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
A happy birthday is measured not in the amount of gifts one gets, but in the amount love one receives.
— Todd Stocker
If you have had a bad day, remember that tomorrow is a wonderful gift and a new chance to try again.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Should we try to account for all the gifts of life there would be no time for distress and uneasiness.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
The best way to be thankful for the gift of life is to not throw it away.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
Many an injustice is presented as a solution and gift.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
some time a big event could not make you happy, but some time a small gift can change the geography of your face.
— Rishad sakhi
Your burdens are perfectly measured and gifted to you according to your resistance.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
The gift of life is present at every moment — even moments that seem insignificant or unpleasant.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
God has a habit of using people, their gifts, and their resources to carry out His plans. In fact, we were created to be God’s deputies, doing His work on earth.
— David Jeremiah, What Are You Afraid Of?
His plan in your life means his work in your hands, and you can be sure it is work he has chosen and gifted you to do.
— Jill Briscoe, Faith Enough To Finish
Unless it was Cokie, gifts from men weren't free.
— Ruta Sepetys, Out of the Easy
Become a gift in the lives of others and you will always be well received.
— Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
I can’t feel too sorry for them. Every gift has to run out someday. Anyone but a child knows that.
— J.Z. Colby, Back to the Stars
Unlike them, however, her path was not through daring deeds or the study of magic or the use of miraculous powers. She had been gifted with something almost as rare: an open and eager mind. She had the gift of watching and listening, the gift of taking all the hurts and happenings of others' lives and understanding their purpose.
— William Joyce, The Sandman and the War of Dreams
Love is not some tool for manipulation. Love is a gift - love is from God. Love means everything.
— Siri Mitchell, A Constant Heart
I brug you two [gifts] . . . I gots the little here in my pockie.' He dug one hand deep into his pocket and pulled out a handful of nuts and a dead grasshopper. 'Nope. Be the other side.' (Matt)
— Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue
God plants our spiritual giftings deep, so it will take years to claim them, but that gives Him time to refine His message in our hearts.
— Alisa Hope Wagner, Eve of Awakening
No matter how potent your talents are, they remain to be out of use until you take time to develop them to their optimum level. This calls for preparation. Through preparation, personal branding, consistent exposure and productive connections, you set up a condition for your dreams to flourish and bear fruits!
— Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes
Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.
— Gabriel Byrne
Ever since Eve gave Adam the apple, there has been a misunderstanding between the sexes about gifts.
— Nan Robertson
I like to think of it less as embezzling and more as an involuntary goodwill contribution.
— Jim Butcher, Cold Days
Giving presents is one of the most possessive things we do, did you realize that? It's the way we keep a hold on other people. Plant ourselves in their lives.
— Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger
And a young prince must be prudent like that,giving freely while his father livesso that afterwards, in age when fighting startssteadfast companions will stand by himand hold the line.
— Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
Begging would have been the best option if God had given talents to only a selected few. Fortunately, He gave us all our compactible gifts respectively, so it is an offence to be a chronic beggar.
— Israelmore Ayivor
It's not the gifts you don't have that hold you back as much as the gifts you do have that you don't use.
— Orrin Woodward
But it is never about who has given what. That is not the way of gifts. This is not a business we are conducting.
— Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
Each one has their gifts. They are not for you- they are to give!
— Hemat Malak
You have been given all the good things one must have, be proud of yourself and enjoy your gifts.
— M.F. Moonzajer
God will make known to you how He wants you to use this gift.
— Jennifer Beckstrand, Kate's Song
Been eating candies, have you?""You sent those?" She kept her mouth closed as much as possible."Of course." He picked up the brown bad of candy on the table. "What's your..." He trailed off as he weighed the bad in his hands. "Didn't I give you three pounds of candy?"She smiled impishly."You ate half the bag!""Was I supposed to save it?""I would have liked some!""You never told me that.""Because I didn't expect you to consume all of it before breakfast!"She snatched the bag from him and put it on the table. "Well, that just hows poor judgement on your part, doesn't it?
— Sarah J. Maas
In my opinion, giving a kiss is a much better prize than receiving one.
— Hiro Fujiwara, Maid-sama! Vol. 02
One of the greatest gifts you can give isyour undivided attention.
— Oprah Winfrey
The quality of gifts depends on the sincerity of the giver.
— Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
As long as a man has, he must give. And when he has nothing more, he is free. This freedom is far nobler than the former giving, for he no longer gives in accident but in essence, and he no longer gives one gift, but all gifts, and he no longer gives to just one man, but to all men.
— John Tauler
The operative word here is 'gifts', plural, meaning not everyone will necessarily have the same combination of gifting that God has ordained for them to utilize in fulfilling their purpose within the Body of Christ. In other words, we all have different gifts and therefore niches within which we fit in The Body of Christ 'universal' ". ~R. Alan Woods [2012]
— R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is The Destination: A Photo Journal
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
— Albert Camus
But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.
— Albert Camus, The Plague
Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.
— Joss Whedon
This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.
— Gloria Steinem
Hope is believing in something that eludes you. It's a desperate feeling in a desperate situation.
— Carroll Bryant
I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-fainthearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.
— Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
— Voltaire
Distinguish between real needs and artificial wants and control the latter.
— Mahatma Gandhi, To Students
People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life. 
— Anthony Hopkins
As my son Frankie put it, Humanism has changed the Twenty-third Psalm: They began - I am my shepherd. Then - Sheep are my shepherd. Then - Everything is my shepherd. Finally - Nothing is my shepherd.
— Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture
Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.
— Wangari Maathai
Let me simply state that it is wrong to regard any other human being, a priori, as an object, or an 'It.' This is so because each and every human being - you, every friend, every stranger, every foreigner - is precious.
— M. Scott Peck, A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered
That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The economy is after all driven by people. No matter how dire the situation may be, as long as people are firm, a turnaround, revival and progress can be possible.
— Daisaku Ikeda
Thinking must never submit itself, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be.
— Jules Henri Poincaré, Oeuvres
We humans who art on EarthHumanity is specialOur kingdom has comeDo what we innately know to be rightOn earth, because that's all there isShare the bread we haveTry not to screw upWhen others screw up, understandWe can't have everything that tempts usDeliver ourselves from evilBecause this is it, the Earth,The power to do right and the glory to come if we do is oursNow and forever,Hu-man.
— Marcus Brigstocke
There is no actual need of humans to be a pious like an angel, it's a big chase to be a human and for me it's enough to be a human.
— M.H. Rakib
Be the slaughterhouse for sacred cows.
— Cassandra Duffy
Eudora Welty singles out for praise Austen's "habit of seeing both sides of her own subject - of seeing it indeed in the round". ... Both men and women can be vain about their appearances, selfish about money, overawed by rank, and limited by parochialism; both men and women can function capably, think profoundly, feel deeply, create imaginatively, laugh wittily, and love faithfully. Without vindicating the rights of anyone directly, Austen posits a humanism far ahead of her time. "How really modern she is, after all," Welty concludes of Austen.
— Emily Auerbach, Searching for Jane Austen
… my century..is unique in the history of men for two reasons. It is the first century since life began when a decisive part of the most articulate section of mankind has not merely ceased to believe in God, but has deliberately rejected God. And it is the century in which this religious rejection has taken a specifically political form….
— Whittaker Chambers, Witness
I feel it respectful to observe and practice new customs, if I am to ever understand what it truly means to be human.
— Jacob D. Lochner, The Twenty-Seven Swords - Part One
Humanists were people who wanted to return to ideas found in old Greek and Latin writing of Greece and Rome, written many centuries earlier. Christian Humanists also wanted to get back to these ideas, but they were mainly concerned with learning about the early Christian Church, before it had become involved with money-making and superstition. They wanted to read the books of the early Church, especially the gospels of Christ, in the original language of Greek, so that they would know exactly what the writings meant. The leader of the Christian Humanists was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), who attacked superstitions in the Catholic Church in his writing.
— Michael A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as humanism gained increasing social credibility and political power, it sprouted two very different offshoots: socialist humanism, which encompassed a plethora of socialist and communist movements, and evolutionary humanism, whose most famous advocates were the Nazis. Both offshoots agreed with liberalism that human experience is the ultimate source of meaning and authority.
— Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Humanism split into three main branches. The orthodox branch holds that each human being is a unique individual possessing a distinctive inner voice and a never-to-be-repeated string of experiences. Every human being is a singular ray of light, which illuminates the world from a different perspective, and which adds colour, depth and meaning to the universe.
— Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
I am not red or blue. I am red, white and blue. Those are the same colors in my body (my heart, blood and veins). I am only human, and the human race is the only race in which I am an active participant - mind, body and soul.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
Religion poisons everything
— Christopher Hitchens
I am no God. I am no Messiah. I am no divine incarnation. I am but a human in the service of humans.
— Abhijit Naskar, I Am The Thread: My Mission
My species should know the following about itself:-The universe created the ultimate abstract life-form by creating man, but scarcity “programmed” him to this current, ridiculously diminished version of himself.-Everyone and every community (clan) is everybody’s and every community’s future ally and brother in arms in what will be humanity’s decisive stand against scarcity, whether they realize it, desire it, or deny it.
— Haroutioun Bochnakian, The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity
Some humans are made to trust in their supernatural Creator(s) to watch over them, make their lives better, protect them from each other, maybe even save them from themselves and their own actions…Listen, and listen well to that huge silenced inner voice of yours;It should be heard along with all the others. Here is what I heard from mine:“Until proof of the existence of a loving Monotheism-presented God or any supernatural Creator, it is man who will watch over man;We have nobody elseJust usJust each other.
— Haroutioun Bochnakian, The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity
Somewhere disappears the religion; however, exists the humanity and somewhere religion alive, but the humanity is dead while each religion teaches it, without that no one can be a human.
— Ehsan Sehgal
We will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together.
— Woodrow Wilson
He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less.
— George Orwell, A Hanging
The pygmies, for example, or the Mindoro of the Philippines, do not want equal rights – they just want to be left alone.
— Paul Karl Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason
Discovery of one’s self, of one’s specific individual powers and potential capacities, learning how to develop them and use them as a socialized human being that cares about the needs of other individuals—would have to become the primary task of a new humanist education.
— Mihailo Markovic, Contemporary Marx
The enemy of humanism is not faith; the enemy of humanism is hate, is fear, is ignorance, is the darker part of man that is in every humanist, every person, in the world. That is the thing we have to fight. Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God is believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary.
— Joss Whedon
He wasn’t the best coder or the most introspective human being, and you must know that it takes the best coder and the most human human to produce the best droid in this age. (Douglas Parsley
— Alan Chains, Return to Island X
I want to say a word to the Brahmins: In the name of God, religion, sastras you have duped us. We were the ruling people. Stop this life of cheating us from this year. Give room for rationalism and humanism.
— Periyar E.V. Ramasamy
It is not our high purposes alone that make us moving creatures, but our humble needs and cravings.
— Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer