# Gift from the Sea - Author: [Anne Morrow Lindbergh](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh.md) - Quotes: 13 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea ## Quotes > I … understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has primarily to do with distractions … Women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life or saintly life. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-understand-why.md) > I believe most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be "in grace" and other periods when they feel "out of grace," even though they may use different words to describe these states. In the first happy condition, one seems to carry all one’s tasks before one lightly, as if borne along on a great tide; and in the opposite state one can hardly tie a shoe-string. It is true that a large part of life consists in learning a technique of tying the shoe-string, whether one is in grace or not. But there are techniques of living too; there are even techniques in the search for grace. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-believe-most.md) > By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/by-and-large.md) > When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/when-one-is-a-stranger.md) > The shape of my life today starts with a family. I have a husband, five children and a home just beyond the suburbs of New York. I have also a craft, writing, and therefore work I want to pursue. The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen. > > But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said, "May the outward and the inward man be at one." I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/the-shape-of-my-life.md) > I have learned by some experience, by many examples, and by the writings of countless others before me, also occupied in the search, that certain environments, certain modes of life, certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-have-learned.md) > I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-find-i-am-shedding.md) > We must relearn to be alone. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/we-must-relearn.md) > I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily — like a hermit crab. But I do not. I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity. My husband and five children must make their way in the world. The life I have chosen as a wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/i-mean-to-lead.md) > Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/good-communication-is-as-stimulating.md) > Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tides of all yesterday’s scribblings. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/rollers-on-the.md) > One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. p. 114 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/one-cannot-collect.md) > The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach — waiting for a gift from the sea. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/anne-morrow-lindbergh/gift-from-the-sea/the-sea-does.md)