quotations about generosity
Generosity is paradoxical. Those who give their resources away, receive back in turn. In offering our time, money, and energy in service of others' well-being, we enhance our own well-being as well. In letting go of some of what we own for the good of others, we better secure our own lives, too.
CHRISTIAN SMITH & HILARY DAVIDSON
The Paradox of Generosity
But generosity cannot cost one much
When what one offers is sure to be rejected.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
Pulcherie
Be generous! Give to those whom you love; give to those who love you; give to the fortunate; give to the unfortunate; yes -- give especially to those to whom you don't want to give.
W. CLEMENT STONE
Be Generous!
Who would not rather be Generosity, scattering flowers of happiness among men, than be a penurious, stingy skeleton hugging his bags of gold?
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he were a rich man.
ALEXANDER POPE
Thoughts on Various Subjects
We'd all like a reputation for generosity, and we'd all like to buy it cheap.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
The Neurotic's Notebook
Some people think that generosity leads to the poorhouse, but that is a mistake. It leads to prosperity and happiness. True, it may, to some degree, diminish our fortunes, but in return it gives us a satisfaction and happiness that fortunes could not give.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
All giving may not be motivated by a generous heart. The tax man also rewards it!
GEORGE VINK
Walking in the Word
The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.
CAROL RYRIE BRINK
Caddie Woodlawn's Family
Generosity is like the sea; and yet the sea hath its bounds.
AL-HADDAD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence--the other from pride or fear.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
The test of generosity is not how much you give, but how much you have left.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
How seldom is generosity perfect and pure! How often do men give because it throws a certain inferiority on those who receive, and superiority on themselves!
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims
The hand of the generous man is like the clouds of heaven, which drop upon the earth fruits, herbage, and flowers; but the heart of the ungrateful is like a desert of sand, which swalloweth the showers that fall, burieth them in its bosom, and produceth nothing.
JOHN MAIR
An Introduction to Latin Syntax
What seems like generosity is often but a disguised ambition, which overlooks little interests, in order to gratify great ones.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
The generous and liberal man doth daily seek out occasions to put his virtue in practice.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Generosity hath open hands, a zealous heart, a constant faith in earth, and a place prepared in heaven.
THOMAS CHALONER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate.
RAVI RAVINDRA
The Wisdom of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
He who gives only what he would as readily throw away gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.
HENRY TAYLOR
"Money", Notes From Life
Generosity is to help a deserving person without his request, and if you help him after his request, then it is either out of self-respect or to avoid rebuke.
ALI
Nahj al-Balagha