Precious

Famous quotes containing the word precious:

    “Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.”
    —Anonymous. Quoted in Richard Chevenix Trench, On the Study of Words, lecture 1 (1858)

    “This perpetual round of constrained civilities to persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in the world, but it is unavoidable in a country town, where everybody is known.... ‘Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable time, to those who know not its value.”
    —Frances Burney (1752–1840)

    “I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?”
    —Gerald Early (20th century)