Your natural gifts are the key to fulfilling your potential for success. Find your natural gifts, develop them and then use them to be the best you can be.

I would rather be dead.

The greatest gift that humans have is the ability to think. Of all the creatures in the world, humans are physically the most ill-equipped. A human cannot fly like a bird, outrun a leopard, swim like an alligator, nor climb trees like a monkey. A human doesn’t have the eyes of an eagle, nor the claws and teeth of a wild cat. Physically, humans are helpless and defenseless; a tiny insect can kill them. But nature is reasonable and kind. Nature’s greatest gift to humankind is the ability to think. Humans can create their own environment, whereas animals have to adapt to their environment.

I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made.

Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them than we are of breathing.

Were I to describe the blessings I desire in life, I would be happy in a few but faithful friends. Might I choose my talent, it should rather be good than learning. I would consult in the choice of my house, convenience rather than state; and, for my circumstances, desire a moderate but independent fortune. Business enough to secure me from indolence, and leisure enough always to have an hour to spare. I would have no master, and I desire few servants. I would not be led away by ambition, nor perplexed with disputes. I would enjoy the blessings of health but rather be beholden for it to a regular life and an easy mind, than to the school of Hippocrates. As to my passions, since we cannot be wholly divested of them, I would hate only those whose manners rendered them odious, and love only where I knew

هكذا أود أن أموت

في العشق الذي أكنه لك.

كقطع سحب

تذوب في ضوء الشمس.

For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage.

I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever God may happen to be looking on. Disappear - and never return. That's my fantasy.

If I could have anything, it would be a radio to ask NASA the safe path down the Ramp. Well, if I could have anything, it would be for the green-skinned yet beautiful Queen of Mars to rescue me so she can learn more about this Earth thing called “lovemaking.

For humans it is not at all possible to have the best thing of all or to have any share of the best nature — since the best thing for all men and women is not to be born. But the second best thing after this and the first available to mortals, is to die as soon as possible after being born.” It is clear that he said this because the way that exists in death is better than the one in life.

What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity…

I don't care when I die, when you die, you die. What I don't want is to die in my bed. To be killed in an accident or to be shot is my preferred way to die.

I think the greatest gift anyone can give to another is the desire to know, to understand. Life is not for simply watching spectator sports, or for taking part in them; it is not for simply living from one working day to the next. Life is for delving, discovering, learning.