Anna Andrejewna Achmatowa
Anna Andrejewna Achmatowa

Give me bitter years of sickness,
Suffocation, insomnia, fever,
Take my child and my lover,
And my mysterious gift of song —
This I pray at your liturgy
After so many tormented days,
So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia
Might become a cloud of glorious rays.

James Truslow Adams
James Truslow Adams

If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes

to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or

position.

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams

The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom

This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.

Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss

He had the settled expression of a certain kind of peasant—the kind that accepts, with protest but without malice, the vagaries of life. It is the gift life sends to compensate for the lack of a high I. Q.

Philo von Alexandria
Philo von Alexandria

But some, making no account of the wealth of nature, pursue the wealth of vain opinions. They choose to lean on one who lacks rather than one who has the gift of sight, and with this defective guidance to their steps must of necessity fall.

Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned
Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned

To give every child the chance to be educated is a gift of promise. A gift of wonderment. A gift that opens up possibilities that can transform lives and develop thinkers, leaders, and creators of great art.

Anakreón
Anakreón

Nature gave horns to the bull,
Hoofs gave she to the horse.
To the lion cavernous jaws,
And swiftness to the hare.
The fish taught she to swim,
The bird to cleave the air;
To man she reason gave;
Not yet was woman dowered.
What, then, to woman gave she?
The priceless gift of beauty.
Stronger than any buckler,
Than any spear more piercing.
Who hath the gift of

beauty.
Nor fire nor steel shall harm her.

Ilona Andrews
Ilona Andrews

Why a raven?"
"To honor my father."
"The writing under it, is that Cyrillic?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
"Dar Vorona. Gift of the Raven. I am my father's gift."
"The raven is holding a bloody sword."
"I never said it was a nice gift.