When people grow gradually rich their requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their present-giving instinc...ts often remain in the undeveloped condition of their earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is their only conception of the ideal gift.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift... of sympathy is his great gift; is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer's shop, forgot their wings and briskness, and b...aked to death in dusty corners of the window.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war)... To the land vaguely realizing westward, But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced, Such as she was, such as she would become.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brillianc...e; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver's glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift- giving virtue is the highest virtue.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
'Tis the gift to be simple 'tis the gift to be free 'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be... And when we find ourselves in the place just right 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »