A Quote by Edward Gibbon

In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . . — © Edward Gibbon
In the productions of the mind, as in those of the soil, the gifts of nature are excelled by industry and skill . . .
Nature demands a gift for everything that it gives, so what we have to keep doing, is returning [leaves & compost materials] back to the soil, then we're continuously giving the gifts to nature, because we have a return cycle.
Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's Word, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health; or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom! Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore God commonly gives riches to foolish people to whom he gives nothing else.
[A person?s] utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.
Out of the long list of nature’s gifts to man, none is perhaps so utterly essential to human life as soil.
It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master.
Never mind money; the gifts of time and skill call into being the richest marketplace in the world.
How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?
Patiently and with industry did I apply myself to study, for although I felt the impossibility of giving life to my productions, I did not abandon the idea of representing nature.
The industry and support in China has really matured because there are so many productions there. At the same time, there's been a lot of changes in the market, which I think also has enabled productions like 'The Grandmaster' to happen and to be possible to shoot in China.
Every person has unique gifts, and those gifts give him or her the power and the opportunity to accomplish great things, if he or she learns how to use those gifts and channel them in the right direction.
I'm not against gifts that entertain, but I really believe that some of the most valuable gifts that we can give are the things that help us to develop a skill and be entertaining.
If nature has been frugal in her gifts and endowments, there is the more need of art to supply her defects. If she has been generous and liberal, know that she still expects industry and application on our part, and revenges herself in proportion to our negligent ingratitude. The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds; and instead of vines and olives for the pleasure and use of man, produces, to its slothful owner, the most abundant crop of poisons.
Beware of all politicians everywhere. They excelled at recess when they were in school but have excelled at little since.
The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.
The worst thing would be for a Canada to develop a Hollywood. This is an industry we are going to have to fight to defend. We have to compete now so productions stay here. We don't want entertainment to be like the steel industry.
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 girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.
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