Group of precious and semiprecious stones—both uncut and faceted—including (clockwise from top left) diamond, uncut synthetic sapphire, ruby, uncut emerald, and amethyst crystal cluster.

A gemstone (also called a gem, fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semi-precious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments.

Quotes

  • All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:
    All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:
    In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:
    Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, and — how far above them —
Truth, that's brighter than gem,
Trust, that's purer than pearl, —
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe, — all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.
  • If solid happiness we prize,
    Within our breast this jewel lies.
    • Nathaniel Cotton, The Fireside, stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
  • God can find a soul of beauty
    Where it falls, as gems of worth
    Are found by miners dark in earth.
    • Joaquin Miller, Shadows of Shasta (1881), Epigraph, Ch. 4 : The Old Gold-Hunter.

  • Dear, I took these trackless masses
    Fresh from Him who fashioned them;
    Wrought in rock, and hewed fair passes,
    Flower set, as sets a gem.

    • Joaquin Miller, ' In Classic Shades, and Other Poems (1890), "Juanita".
  • The earth, he'd say, is just a big machine. A big processing plant. A factory. That's your big answer. The big truth. Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones.
  • Any life form in any realm – mineral, vegetable, animal, or human – can be said to undergo “enlightenment.” It is, however, an extremely rare occurrence since it is more than an evolutionary progression: It also implies a discontinuity in its development, a leap to an entirely different level of Being and, most important, a lessening of materiality. What could be heavier and more impenetrable than a rock, the densest of all forms? And yet some rocks undergo a change in their molecular structure, turn into crystals, and so become transparent to the light. Some carbons, under inconceivable heat and pressure, turn into diamonds, and some heavy minerals into other precious stones.... Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit. Like all lifeforms, they are, of course, temporary manifestations of the underlying one Life, one Consciousness. Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such fascination for and affinity with them can be attributed to their ethereal quality.
  • “The emerald is a natural emerald, which makes it slightly more valuable than an artificial one.”
    “How do you know?” I asked. She’d made the judgment a split second after she’d put the ring into the laser scanner.
    “Natural gems have flaws,” the jeweler said. “Artificial gems are perfect.”

Bible

The Bible on Wikisource.
  • Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
  • A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it.
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