Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Gifts
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Acts. XX. 35.
Like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.
Tom Brown—Laconics.
He ne’er considered it as loth
To look a gift-horse in the mouth,
And very wisely would lay forth
No more upon it than ’twas worth;
But as he got it freely, so
He spent it frank and freely too:
For saints themselves will sometimes be,
Of gifts that cost them nothing, free.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 489.
It is not the weight of jewel or plate,
Or the fondle of silk or fur;
’Tis the spirit in which the gift is rich,
As the gifts of the Wise Ones were,
And we are not told whose gift was gold,
Or whose was the gift of myrrh.
Edmund Vance Cooke—The Spirit of the Gift.
The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him.
Emerson—Essays. Of Gifts.
It is said that gifts persuade even the gods.
Euripides—Medea. 964.
Gleich schenken? das ist brav. Da wird er reüssieren.
Presents at once? That’s good. He is sure to succeed.
Goethe—Faust. I. 7. 73.
Denn Geben ist Sache des Reichen.
For to give is the business of the rich.
Goethe—Hermann und Dorothea. I. 15.
Die Gaben
Kommen von oben herab, in ihren eignen Gestalten.
Gifts come from above in their own peculiar forms.
Goethe—Hermann und Dorothea. Canto V. L. 69.
Der Mutter schenk’ ich,
Die Tochter denk’ ich.
I make presents to the mother, but think of the daughter.
Goethe—Sprüche in Reimen. III.
Give an inch, he’ll take an ell.
Hobbes—Liberty and Necessity. No. 111.
John Webster—Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Rare gift! but oh, what gift to fools avails!
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. 10. L. 29. Pope’s trans.
Omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat.
Everything that is superfluous overflows from the full bosom.
Horace—Ars Poetica. 337.
Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
St. Jerome—On the Epistie to the Ephesians. According to Archbishop Trench, explanation that his writings were free-will offerings, when fault was found with them. Found also in Vulgaria Stambrigi. (About 1510).
“Presents,” I often say, “endear Absents.”
Lamb—A Dissertation upon Roast Pig.
Denn der Wille
Und nicht die Gabe macht den Geber.
For the will and not the gift makes the giver.
Lessing—Nathan der Weise. I. 5.
Parvis mobilis rebus animus muliebris.
A woman’s mind is affected by the meanest gifts.
Livy—Annales. VI. 34.
Not what we give, but what we share,—
For the gift without the giver is bare.
Lowell—Vision of Sir Launfal. Pt. II. St. 8.
In giving, a man receives more than he gives, and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given.
George MacDonald—Mary Marston. Ch. V.
Quisquis magna dedit, voluit sibi magna remitti.
Whoever makes great presents, expects great presents in return.
Martial—Epigrams. V. 59. 3.
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Matthew. VII. 9.
And wisest he in this whole wide land
Of hoarding till bent and gray;
For all you can hold in your cold, dead hand
Is what you have given away.
. . . . . .
He gave with a zest and he gave his best;
Give him the best to come.
Joaquin Miller—Peter Cooper.
All we can hold in our cold dead hands is what we have given away.
Old Sanscrit proverb.
Take gifts with a sigh: most men give to be paid.
John Boyle O’Reilly—Rules of the Road.
Rest est ingeniosa dare.
Giving requires good sense.
Ovid—Amorum. I. 8. 62.
Majestatem res data dantis habet.
The gift derives its value from the rank of the giver.
Ovid—Epistolæ Ex Ponto. IV. 9. 68.
Acceptissima semper munera sunt auctor quæ pretiosa facit.
Those gifts are ever the most acceptable which the giver makes precious.
Ovid—Heriodes. XVII. 71.
Dicta docta pro datis
Smooth words in place of gifts.
Plautus—Asinaria. Act III.
Altera manu fert lapidem, panem ostentat altera.
In one hand he bears a stone, with the other offers bread.
Plautus—Aulularia. Act II. 2. 18.
The horseleech hath two daughters, crying Give, give.
Proverbs. XXX. 15.
Bis dat qui cito dat.
He gives twice who gives quickly.
Credited to Publius Mimus by Langius, in Polyanth. Noviss. P. 382. Erasmus—Adagia. P. 265, (Ed. 1579) quoting Seneca. Compare Seneca—De Beneficiis. II. 1. Homer—Iliad. XVIII. 98. Title of epigram in a book entitled Joannis Owen, Oxeniensis Angli Epigrammatum. (1632) P. 148. Also in Manipulus Sacer—Concionum Maralium, Collectus ex Voluminibus R. P. Hieremiæ Drexelii. (1644). Euripides—Rhes. 333. Ausonius—Epigram. 83. 1. (Trans.) Alciatus—Emblemata. 162.
He always looked a given horse in the mouth.
Rabelais—Works. Bk. I. Ch. XI.
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving;
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving.
Richard Realf—Indirection.
Fabius Verrucosus beneficium ab homine duro aspere datum, panem lapidosum vocabat.
Fabius Verrucosus called a favor roughly bestowed by a hard man, bread made of stone.
Seneca—De Beneficiis. II. 7.
Deus quædam munera universo humano generi dedit, a quibus excluditur nemo.
God has given some gifts to the whole human race, from which no one is excluded.
Seneca—De Beneficiis. IV. 28.
Cum quod datur spectabis, et dantem adspice!
While you look at what is given, look also at the giver.
Seneca—Thyestes. CCCXVI.
Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
I would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.
As You Like It. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 34.
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 101.
All other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
Henry IV. Part II. Act 1. Sc. 2. L. 194.
Win her with gifts, if she respect not words;
Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
More than quick words do move a woman’s mind.
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 89.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.
Vergil—Æneid. II. 49.
Parta meæ Veneri sunt munera; namque notavi
Ipse locum aëriæ quo congessere palumbes.
I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.
Vergil—Eclog. III. 68. English by Shenstone. Pastoral. II. Hope. Erroneously attributed to Rowe by Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown’s School Days.
Denn was ein Mensch auch hat, so sind’s am Ende Gaben.
For whatever a man has, is in reality only a gift.
Wieland—Oberen. II. 19.
Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,
When I give I give myself.
Walt Whitman—Leaves of Grass. Song of Myself. 40.
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more.
Wordsworth—Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Pt. III. No. 43.
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.
Wordsworth—The Sparrow’s Nest.
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath.
Wordsworth—These Times Strike Monied Worldlings.