Quotes About Charity and Philanthropy

Sometimes give your services for nothing. . . .

— Hippocrates

Let us not paralyze our capacity for good by brooding over man’s capacity for evil.

— David Sarnoff

Money is like manure.  If you spread it around, it does a lot of good, but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.

— Clint W. Murchison

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

— George Bernard Shaw

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

— Matthew 19:24

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings.

— Helen Keller

Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice.

— Adolf Hitler

You can’t take it with you.  You never see a U-Haul following a hearse.

— Ellen Glasgow

No person was ever honored for what he received.  Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

— Calvin Coolidge

We cannot exist without mutual help.  All, therefore, that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow men, and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.

— Sir Walter Scott

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

— Andrew Carnegie

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.

— Henry David Thoreau

No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.

— Mandell Creighton

He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack.

— Proverbs 28:27

A good deed never goes unpunished.

— Gore Vidal

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.

— Adlai E. Stevenson

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

— Booker T. Washington

To bear other people’s afflictions, everyone has courage and enough to spare.

— Benjamin Franklin

Money-giving is a very good criterion of a person’s mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.

— Karl A. Menninger

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

— Bertrand Russell

At the Harvest Festival in church the area behind the pulpit was piled with tins of fruit for the old-age pensioners.  We had collected the tinned fruit from door to door.  Most of it came from old-age pensioners.

— Clive James

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.

— H. L. Mencken

As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.

— Victor Hugo

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

— Acts 20:35

 ‘Tis always more blessed to give than to receive; for example, wedding presents.

— H. L. Mencken

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

— Andrew Carnegie

The desire for power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire for knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man or angels come into danger by it.

— Francis Bacon

Plenty of people despise money, but few know how to give it away.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A beggar can never be bankrupt.

— John Clarke

Charity never faileth.

— 1 Corinthians 13:8

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

— 1 Corinthians 13:13

God loveth a cheerful giver.

–    2 Corinthians 9:7

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

— Luke 12:48

The dead carry with them to grave in their clutched hands only that which they have given away.

— DeWitt Wallace

Beggars should be abolished entirely!  It is annoying to give to them and it is annoying not to give to them.

— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

We do not quite forgive a giver.  The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Freely ye have received, freely give.

— Matthew 10:8

Let us not be weary in well doing.

— Galatians 6:9

He gives twice that gives soon; that is, he will soon be called to give again.

— Benjamin Franklin

When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.

— Matthew 6:3

As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.

— John Stuart Mill

Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible.  Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

— G. K. Chesterton

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out.

— Alexander Pope

Cheapness characterizes almost all donations of the American people to the Negro. . . .

— Alexander Crummell

A pretty good test of a man’s religion is how it affects his pocketbook.

— Francis James Grimke

Everybody wants to do something to help, but nobody wants to be first.

— Pearl Bailey

Giving away a fortune is taking Christianity too far.

— Charlotte Bingham

The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water.  It flows down, clear and cool, from the heights of Hermon and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon.  The Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, for the Sea of Galilee has an outlet, It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out again to fertilize the Jordan plain.  But the Dead Sea with the same water makes horror.  But the Dead Sea has no outlet.  It gets to keep.

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

When we grow old, there can only be one regret—not to have given enough of ourselves.

— Eleonora Duse

No man actually owns a fortune.  It owns him.

— A. P. Giannini

It went beyond idealism and that ridiculous term activism, which basically means talking about something but doing nothing. . . . We made giving exciting.

— Bob Geldof, on organizing fund-raising concerts for African relief

It’s really very simple, Governor.  When people are hungry, they die.  So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you’re going to get it to these people.

— Bob Geldof, discussing famine relief with a Sudanese deputy governor

The fountain is my speech.  The tulips are my speech.  The grass and trees are my speech.

— George T. Delacorte, donor of a public fountain

I never thought God would hold someone accountable for not raising money.

— Pat Robertson, on Oral Roberts’s warning that God might “call him back” if contributions were inadequate

The eight grades of charity:

1.  to give reluctantly

2.  to give cheerfully but not adequately

3.  to give cheerfully and adequately, but only after being asked

4.  to give cheerfully, adequately, and of your own free will, but to put it in the recipient’s hand in such a way as to make him feel lesser

5.  to let the recipient know who the donor is, but not the reverse

6.  to know who is receiving your charity but to remain anonymous to him

7.  to have neither the donor nor the recipient be aware of the other’s identity

8.  to dispense with charity altogether, by enabling your fellow humans to have the wherewithal to earn their own living.

— Maimonides, twelfth-century Jewish sage

First we just gave them these surpluses.  Next we agreed to pay freight on transportation to ports.  Then we agreed to mill the grain and package it.  The next thing [you know] we’ll be asked to cook it and serve it.

— Allan J. Ellender, U.S. senator, on complaints from charitable organizations

Karl Menninger was once asked what action he would recommend if a person were to feel a nervous breakdown coming on.  “Lock up your house,” the famous psychiatrist advised, “go across the railroad tracks, and find someone in need and do something for him.”

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions.  He had money as well.

— Margaret Thatcher

Charity begins at home.

— Terence