Charity Quotes

I try not to speak about all the charities and people I help, because I believe we can only be truly generous when we expect nothing in return. ~ Muhammad Ali

Almost every Monday I have a charity thing. I like that. I do. ~ Yogi Berra

We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them. ~ John Calvin

Jesus Christ and St Paul possess the order of charity, not of the mind, for they wished to humble, not to teach. ~ Blaise Pascal

That's the trouble with our charities; we are always saving somebody away off, when the fellow next to us ain't eating. ~ Will Rogers

Women know the damnation of charity because the habit of civilization has always been to throw them cheap alms rather than give them good wages. ~ Rebecca West

If our charities do not pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small,
There ought to be things we should like to do and can not do because our charities expenditure excludes them, ~ C.S. Lewis

If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour. ~ Jose Marti

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer. ~ Seneca.

A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family. And they were my heroes. ~ Jim Butcher

I've long wanted to find a charitable cause to really get involved with and be passionate about. I get invited to a lot of charity events to sing, and I am happy to help and bring a source of entertainment, but I'm sort of disconnected from them. ~ Katharine McPhee

In today's Republican Party, there's a term for people who hate charity and love killing: 'Christian.' ~ Bill Maher

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame. ~ Robert Southey

The Hanlin named his granddaughter Lustrous Jade, for jade was the fairest of stones and possessed five virtues: charity, for its lustre; rectitude, for its translucence; wisdom, for its purity of sound when struck; equity, for its sharp edges that injure none; courage, for it can be broken but not bent. ~ Bette Bao Lord

It is a sign of maturity ... to find explanations in charity. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Charity is to will and do what is just and right in every transaction. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Earl rarely used the word, but his whole system of teaching and his whole way of living was built around the concept of honor. You honored God by using your time wisely, and you honored your fellow man by treating him with respect. You honored your teacher by calling him "sir," and he honored his students by challenging them to face pain and become stronger. Earl had come to associate charity with pain, and he believed that love did its deepest work when applied to a wound. ~ Eric Greitens

[I]n the kingdom of charity, one prefers to suffer some inconvenience rather than inconvenience the neighbor. ~ Vincent De Paul

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe. ~ Virginia Woolf

Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time. ~ Walter E. Williams

Without the theological aspect, the emphasis on adoption too easily is seen as mere charity. Without the missional aspect, the doctrine of adoption too easily is seen as mere metaphor. ~ Russell D. Moore

Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. ~ Ayn Rand

Until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on the edge of extermination, dependent for existence on the charity of a few human beings. ~ Gerald Durrell

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Love is about giving, about caring for the other person's welfare. Love is treating someone, in the Kantian sense, never as a means but as an end in themselves. Love is sacrifice, love is something you work at, something you build like a house or tend like a plant, brick by brick, drop by drop, day by day. Nonsense. Old wives' tales, old husbands' tales. That is affection they are talking about, that is companionship, that is charity, that is tickets for the Cancer Research Ball. You must ask the young if you want to know what love is. Only they are deep enough in it to describe. We older ones have clues and simulacra, we base our judgement, like pathologists do, on the dents and scars and sediments of hearts long kept in formaldehyde. It is the pulsing heart you want to probe: the pulsing, beating, leaping, dipping, fluttering heart of a seventeen-year-old. ~ A.P.

Solidarity is not an act of charity, but mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objective. ~ Samora Machel

Music and philanthropy have a long, benevolent relationship with one another. Record bins are rife with charity singles, and concert history is filled with benefit shows for every imaginable cause. Musicians like to give back. ~ Shawn Amos

There aren't nearly enough worldly mansions for the kind folks who deserve them. ~ Bryant A. Loney

Wandering down the street in an aimless sort of way, cold too, in a dress from last night that made young men stop and stare in the street, Charity Hill found herself hating the single life for the very first time. ~ Elizabeth Jane Howard

Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do. ~ Kahlil Gibran

It's easy to be kind to friends who return your smiles and happily lend a helping hand. But the true test of good character is finding the will and desire to be kind and charitable to those who give us absolutely no motivation to do so. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

We are obligated to be more scrupulous in fulfilling the commandment of charity than any other positive commandment because charity is the sign of a righteous man. ~ Maimonides

Not Titanic," I said lightly, squirming in my seat.
"I don't blame you," he said, standing up and grabbing the blanket. "I hate that movie, too. Everyone knows there was plenty of room for Jack on that door. ~ Charity Ferrell

The reason why you see no real mortification or self-denial, no eminent charity, no profound humility, no heavenly affection, no true contempt of the world, no Christian meekness, no sincere zeal, no eminent piety in the common lives of Christians, is this, because they do not so much as intend to be exact and exemplary in these virtues. ~ William Law

Mission is a duty about which one must say 'Woe to me if I do not evangelize' (1 Corinthians 9:16) ... redemption and mission are acts of love [because] those who proclaim the Gospel participate in the charity of Christ. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

In a word: charity cannot be neutral, antiseptic, indifferent, lukewarm or impartial! Charity is infectious, it excites, it risks, and it engages! For true charity is always unmerited, unconditional, and gratuitous! ~ Pope Francis

We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and charity. In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Whoever approaches these Olympians with another religion in his heart, searching among them for moral elevation, even for sanctity, for disincarnate spirituality, for charity and benevolence, will soon be forced to turn his back on them, discouraged and disappointed. For there is nothing here that suggests asceticism, spirituality, or duty. We hear nothing but the accents of an exuberant, triumphant life in which all things, whether good or evil, are deified. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I wouldn't dream of selling my work. I give them to friends, to charities. ~ Rod Taylor

From 15 to 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself. At that age you don't look for what is hidden. It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Instead of exhorting you to augment your charity, I will rather utter an exhortation, or at least a supplication, that you may not abuse your charity by misapplying it. ~ Cotton Mather

Capital formation is the greatest charity of all. ~ F. A. Harper

But what sent his face clear down off his skull and broke him in two, though, was he said when he saw the Pam-shiny empty biscuit pan on top of the stove and the plastic rind of the peanut butter's safety-seal wrap on top of the wastebasket's tall pile. The little locket-picture in the back of his head swelled and became a sharp-focused scene of his wife and little girl and little unborn child eating what he now could see they must have eaten, last night and this morning, while he was out ingesting their groceries and rent. This was his cliff-edge, his personal intersection of choice, standing there loose-faced in the kitchen, running his finger around a shiny pan with not one little crumb of biscuit left in it. He sat down on the kitchen tile with his scary eyes shut tight but still seeing his little girl's face. They'd ate some charity peanut butter on biscuits washed down with tapwater and a grimace. ~ David Foster Wallace

If almost everyone is in favor of feeding the hungry, the politician may find it in his interest to do so. But, under those circumstances, the politician is unnecessary: some kind soul will give the hungry man a meal anyway. If the great majority is against the hungry man, some kind soul among the minority still may feed him - the politician will not. ~ David D. Friedman

The designer of my Emmy gown is donating my gown to the charity for an auction. ~ Maria Menounos

Love is donating a chunk of your life to patch up holes in the life of another. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

To create a new business that makes money, and more significantly, employs others, and more significantly, gives a product to a customer that improves their life, is our greatest challenge, our greatest opportunity, and the greatest gift, far greater than any charity that we can give our fellow person. ~ Paul Zane Pilzer

Where has the Scripture made merit the rule or measure of charity?. ~ William Law

You want to be paid as well, you virtuous! You want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I am not a capitalist in the simplistic left/right sense. But I do believe in the power of the global free-market economy and in using capitalist tools. I believe in the power of teh free market and the power of capital in the marketplace. I also believe that providing unemployment benefits is not the best way to address poverty. The able-bodied poor don't wan tor need charity. The dole only increases their misery, robs them of incentive and, more important, of self-respect. ~ Muhammad Yunus

As you look back in history, we [the United States] have done wonderful things, the Marshal Plan is the most obvious. After World War II, we spent billions of dollars to rebuild Europe or at least part of Europe after the devastation of World War II. We did it out of charity, but we also did it to keep the Russians from getting deeply into Europe. ~ Michael Beschloss

Women are the most spectacular instance of this. After a period of independence that came with the spread of Christianity, they were relegated to a lower order. This is all the more interesting because the gospel and the first church were never hostile to women nor treated them as minors, and the situation of women in the Roman empire (particularly in the East) was relatively favourable. In spite of this, when Christianity became a power or authority, this worked against women. A strange perversion, yet fully understandable when we allow that women represent precisely the most innovative elements in Christianity: grace, love, charity, a concern for living creatures, nonviolence, an interest in little things, the hope of new beginnings - the very elements that Christianity was setting aside in favor of glory and success. ~ Jacques Ellul

Broken people have an irresistible urge to try to 'fix' the world. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us. ~ C.S. Lewis

She wondered if it counted as being good if you did the good thing for purely selfish reasons. Probably not, but who cared. What was important was what you did, not how you felt. ~ Emily Gould

We see community organizations as major service providers and economic drivers rather than as recipients or distributors of charity, and coordinators of volunteers. Today they constitute what's referred to as 'the social economy'. ~ Julia Gillard

Either over neither, both over either/or, live-and-let-live over stand-or die, high spirits over low, energy over apathy, wit over dullness, jokes over homilies, good humor over jokes, good nature over bad, feeling over sentiment, truth over poetry, consciousness over explanations, tragedy over pathos, comedy over tragedy, entertainment over art, private over public, generosity over meanness, charity over murder, love over charity, irreplaceable over interchangeable, divergence over concurrence, principle over interest, people over principle. ~ Marvin Mudrick

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity. ~ Samuel Johnson

Classically, cosmetics companies will take highly theoretical, textbookish information about the way that cells work - the components at a molecular level or the behavior of cells in a glass dish - and then pretend it's the same as the ultimate issue of whether something makes you look nice. "This molecular component," they say, with a flourish, "is crucial for collagen formation." And that will be perfectly true (along with many other amino acids which are used by your body to assemble protein in joints, skin, and everywhere else), but there is no reason to believe that anyone is deficient in it or that smearing it on your face will make any difference to your appearance. In general, you don't absorb things very well through your skin, because its purpose is to be relatively impermeable. When you sit in a bath of baked beans for charity, you do not get fat, nor do you start farting. ~ Ben Goldacre

I make no apology for wanting to make a profit - the more I make, the bigger percentage will go to charity. So most of the work I do now is motivated by that. ~ John Caudwell

This child was well muffled up in a pair of man's trousers, but he did not get them from his father, and a woman's chemise, but he did not get it from his mother. Some people or other had clothed him in rags out of charity. Still, he had a father and a mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother did not love him. He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of those who have father ~ Victor Hugo

I have ceased to care about anything. I have no personal ambition, or even the desire that people call me nice, or pretty, or witty. Nor do I have any use for sensation, nor do I care. Cessation. It is a technical circle, encircling, cycle, of giving the body to be burned, but having no charity.
... What can I do? For without love I am truly dead. ~ Elizabeth Smart

To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil - such belongs to a perfect spiritual love. ~ Maximus The Confessor

Mother Teresa was a hero of mine for a long time. I just like the way she took on the world from a very humble place. She has a great quote. When she was leaving her monestary to start Sisters of Charity, she had two pennies. She was asked by a head priest what she could possibly do with two pennies. She said, 'Nothing. But with two pennies and God, I can do anything'. ~ Jack Canfield

There is no dearth of charity in the world in giving, but there is comparatively little exercised in thinking and speaking. ~ Philip Sidney

Another reason why I am always close to the people, because the communication is very important. When I stopped to play soccer I continued to ... I continued to work with UNICEF. I did a lot of work with UNESCO. We did a lot of charity programme and games. ~ Pele

God helps those who help themselves, but helps most those who help others. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The first proof of charity in a priest, especially a bishop, is poverty. ~ Victor Hugo

Santa Claus ran his finger across the rough parchment, lightly tracing the inscription below. "Charity unto others brings its own reward," he whispered. ~ Brom

Whatever troubles may be before you, accept them bravely, remembering Whom you are trying to follow. Do not be afraid. Love one another, bear with one another, and let charity guide you all your life. God will reward you as only He can. ~ Mary MacKillop

Is it not when the fall is the lowest that charity ought to be the greatest? ~ Victor Hugo

Philanthropy, like charity, must begin at home. ~ Charles Lamb

...with malice towards none and charity for all... ~ A. Lincoln

Really, seeing the amount we give in charity, the wonder is there are any poor left. It is a comfort that there are. What should we do without them? Our fur-clad little girls! our jolly, red-faced squires! we should never know how good they were, but for the poor? Without the poor how could we be virtuous? We should have to go about giving to each other. And friends expect such expensive presents, while a shilling here and there among the poor brings to us all the sensations of a good Samaritan. Providence has been very thoughtful in providing us with poor. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.

Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up and doing that every day? ~ Ruth Ahmed

Yet already their destruction begins. It comes upon them gradually, in little ways. Bit by bit their belief in themselves erodes. A growing cynicism pervades their lives. Small acts of kindness and charity are abandoned as pointless and somehow indicative of weakness. Little failures of behavior lead to bigger ones. It is not enough to ignore the discourtesies of others; discourtesies must be repaid in kind. Men are intolerant and judgmental. They are without grace. If one man proclaims that God has spoken to him, another quickly proclaims that his God is false. If the homeless cannot find shelter, then surely they are to blame for their condition. If the poor do not have jobs, then surely it is because they will not work. If sickness strikes down those whose lifestyle differs from our own, then surely they have brought it on themselves. ~ Terry Brooks

Make a donation or a charity or volunteer your time this month to help others less fortunate than yourself. ~ Demi Lovato

Your mind expands when you give, your heart expands when you share, and your soul expands when you are charitable. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

We went around and looked and talked to a lot of foundations with those charities and decided upon the Children's Hospital. They had a golf tournament at the time, but it was a small event that didn't raise a significant amount of money. ~ Tom Kite

Charity liked brandy. She liked the way it burned her throat while soothing the ache in her heart. ~ Elizabeth Jane Howard

The argument of socialists, that people really want to share, beyond a reasonable level of charity, is rubbish, though it is espoused by a lot of rich, pious hypocrites who want to share only enough to avoid widespread starvation, mob violence, and government seizure of more of their incomes. ~ Conrad Black

Charity is an ugly trick. It is a virtue grown by the rich on the graves of the poor. Unless it is accompanied by sincere revolt against the present social system, it is a cheap moral swagger. In former times it was used as fire insurance by the rich, but now that the fear of Hell has gone along with the rest of revealed religion, it is used either to gild mean lives with nobility or as a political instrument. ~ Rebecca West

Today, our actions must be motivated only by our intense desire to achieve a just and lasting peace. The compassion and charity of the American people should be reflected in this legislation, though sadly, they are silenced. ~ Nick Rahall

Materialism is a conviction based not upon evidence or logic but upon what Carl Sagan (speaking of another kind of faith) called a "deep-seated need to believe." Considered purely as a rational philosophy, it has little to recommend it; but as an emotional sedative, what Czeslaw Milosz liked to call the opiate of unbelief, it offers a refuge from so many elaborate perplexities, so many arduous spiritual exertions, so many trying intellectual and moral problems, so many exhausting expressions of hope or fear, charity or remorse. In this sense, it should be classified as one of those religions of consolation whose purpose is not to engage the mind or will with the mysteries of being but merely to provide a palliative for existential grievances and private disappointments. Popular atheism is not a philosophy but a therapy. ~ David Bentley Hart

You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work. ~ John Ruskin

When truth looks in the mirror, virtue looks out.
When courage looks in the mirror, faith looks out.
When charity looks in the mirror, love looks out.
When contentment looks in the mirror, peace looks out. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing - an interstellar kula chain - affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy - tying them together, building common traditions ... The notion strikes me as kind of fine. ~ Roger Zelazny

I remember that after that teaching given to me as a young man, as a boy, almost, by the President of the Church. I read this chapter about once a week for quite a while, then once a month for several months. I thought I needed it in my business, so to speak; that it was one of the things that were necessary for my advancement. ~ Heber J. Grant

Present injustices exist not so much because simple individuals are acting in bad faith or lacking in charity, but because huge, impersonal systems (that seem beyond the control of the individuals acting within them) disprivilege some even as they unduly privilege others. ~ Ronald Rolheiser

And now, it turns out that our mother's name means benevolence and generosity to people as objects of love! This is both a unique and beautiful name, Charity. "It was one of life's cruel ironies," I thought, "that a midwife, or whoever filled in the documents, must have known our mom's name. I suppose she had a lot of fun naming us Hope and Faith! Or, on the contrary, she sympathized. ~ Igor Eliseev

Show charity and goodwill to others and it will return to enhance your own life in many wonderful ways. ~ Bryan Adams

Not everyone is a morning person. Some of us perform better when we're actually awake. If you're also a night owl, take heart. Night owls are fun loving, seem to be more creative, and may even have a higher IQ than their morning person counterparts ([4]). ~ Charity Grant

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts ... .We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need - not all the time, surely, but from time to time - to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember - the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived. ~ Frederick Buechner

Of course, everyone had heard of the Ten Commandments, but these things, so much subtler, so embedded in the stuff of everyday human life and human interactions--this was the ultimate goal of all Jewish life: justice, kindness, charity, Holiness. ~ Naomi Ragen

The love of truth is the stimulus to all noble conversation. This is the root of all the charities. The tree which springs from it may have a thousand branches, but they will all bear a golden and generous fruitage. ~ Orville Dewey

If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God's. ~ Jonathan Edwards

Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed. ~ Jan De Hartog

Oxytocin infusion increases generosity in unilateral monetary transfers by 80 percent [and] increases donations to charity by 50 percent. ~ Paul J. Zak

People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes. ~ Thomas Sowell