quotations about generosity
In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.
ELIZABETH GILBERT
Eat, Pray, Love
In the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of generosity and opportunities of doing good, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it; and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake, than for his neighbor's.
PHILIP FROWDE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants.
PIERRE CORNEILLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
The whole effect of generosity is in the love of doing good.
ROBERT FLEMING
attributed, Day's Collacon
Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
LORD ACTON
letter to Mary Gladstone, March 15, 1880
True generosity defers not its gifts.
AR-RUMI
attributed, Day's Collacon
True generosity does not consist in obeying every impulse of humanity, in following blind passion for our guide, and impairing our circumstances by present benefactions, so as to render us incapable of future ones.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Essays and Poems
Avaricious men are the greatest lovers of generosity--in everybody but themselves.
G. D. PRENTICE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Being generous is the best way to avoid greed.
JOYCE MEYER
Love Out Loud
Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Miscellany of Men
Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not Governments. When governments are generous it is with other people's money, other people's safety, other people's future.
P. D. JAMES
The Children of Men
All are friends to the generous man.
AL-MAUSILI
attributed, Day's Collacon
You've been so kind and generous.
I don't know how you keep on giving.
For your kindness, I'm in debt to you.
For your selflessness, my admiration.
And for everything you've done, you know I'm bound...
I'm bound to thank you for it.
NATALIE MERCHANT
"Kind & Generous", Ophelia
Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
All my experience of the world teaches me that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the safe side and the just side of a question, is the generous side and the merciful side.
MRS. JAMESON
attributed, Day's Collacon
It always pays to be generous with that which costs you nothing.
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
The Autobiography of Methuselah
Being generous is a leap of faith. There is no denying that you are taking chances when you give away anything of value to another, even if it is only your time.
LOUISE PHIPPS SENFT & WILLIAM SENFT
Being Relational
Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
It needs as much generosity to take as to give.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
He who, from native generosity, would not bruise a worm, will be the slowest to incur the venom of a serpent; and when maliciously stung, will find no small mitigation of his pangs in the sympathies of all the magnanimous and good.
ELIAS LYMAN MAGOON
Living Orators in America