The most precious thing that people can give to one another is time.

The most precious thing that people can give to one another is not money but time.

My father, when he went, made my childhood a gift of half a century.

What one gives actually coincides only rarely with the thing itself whose ownership one transfers to someone else. Quite the opposite: The majority of the time the given thing remains the possibly expensive but often negligible token and sign of what one is really giving and what is not a thing. When I give my time, my life, my affection, my word, my loyalty, in short, my love, that is, the only things that we really would like to receive from the other, they precisely do not concern mundane things one could possess, stockpile, or keep in a box. Thus to mark these “nonthings” in phenomenality (such as time, love, one’s word, loyalty, etc.), I really do give them, [but] I give a different thing, actually a first thing, which serves as the pure and simple symbol for the nonthing that is actually given (a ring, a jewel, a certificate, a signature, etc.).

The greatest gift anyone can give to a writer is time

I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage – very important things to me – and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me. All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognize them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape. We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own; and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us.

His father had always stressed that the comforts they enjoyed came with a responsibility to give back. In the words of the Bible, “To whom much is given, much is required.

Time's a strange fellow; more he gives than takes (and he takes all)

Use for yourself little,” he said, “but give to others much.”26

Cecil's habit of providing for others wasn't limited to his immediate family. One day he got word his best friend had lost his home in a fire. At that time Cecil was struggling to pay his own bills. But that didn't stop him: he cut corners and scraped together whatever he could. And he gave his friend all the cash he could find. I remember that day- as he handed the cash to his friend- because it looked like so much money to me at the time. I would guess it was no more than a hundred dollars in various denominations of bills, but to an eight-year-old it looked like a fortune. It left a powerful impression on me and just deepened my respect and admiration for him over the years. Throughout my life my father exhibited many examples for me to follow concerning the responsibility a man has to care for those he loves and for those who are in need. My father firmly believed it wasn't the U.S. government's responsibility to take care of his parents, his children, friends, or his neighbors. In fact, in his view, it was his role as an American who loved his country to provide for others as much as possible.

What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other — but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness — of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him.

Fatherhood was about your dad trading in the old glint in his eye—what he loved to do—for the new glint in his eye: his love for you.

In the long run, the way you treat your time is the way others treat it too.

The many people he met, along with his lifelong interest in teaching, made him often consider the legacy one generation leaves behind for another.