Quotes about Generosity

No psychological message is so open to question as that which tells us that we have nothing left to do or to give.

Tzu Chang asked Confucius about jen. Confucius said, "If you can practice these five things with all the people, you can be called jen."

Tzu Chang asked what they were.

Confucius said, "Courtesy, generosity, honesty, persistence, and kindness.
If you are courteous, you will not be disrespected;
if you are generous, you will gain everything.
If you are honest, people will rely on you.
If you are persistent you will get results.
If you are kind, you can employ people."

For this I bless you most.  You give much and know not that you give at all.

Is devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.

Love and generosity are the simplest forms of peace.

If someone hates you, they won't ask you for things.

~~Ashanti proverby, quoted by Kwame Anthony Appiah in "Cosmopolitanism."

"I believe that there is only one story in the world...Humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil...A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well--or ill?"

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

We never really realise how important help it is to helping others, to extend a little bit of ourselves.

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

It takes money to make money, even begging. Humans are herd animals. If a stranger’s bleeding to death beside the road, most people won’t stop to offer a Band-Aid. But get the ball rolling with a couple Good Samaritans, and before you know it you’ve got more eager philanthropists than you know what to do with.

“The small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy.”

The sage never tries to store things up.
The more he does for others, the more he has.
The more he gives to others, the greater his abundance.

What man has more than enough and gives it to the world?
Only the man of Tao.

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

The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.

Act genially in the
face of rancor.
You may be the only
angel in that person’s life.

In place of the Old Bottom Line of money and power, a New Bottom Line of Love and Generosity is possible. People of all faiths need to shape a political and social movement that reaffirms the most generous, peace-oriented, social justice-committed, and loving truths of the spiritual heritage of the human race. It is only this resurrection of hope that can save us from a new wave of global hatred.

The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... In winning our freedom, we will so appeal to you heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

Since we remember that we are really all part of one great soul, we can see our beloved as ourselves, and know that we can give without end, without harm. And we know we can give everything. We can give not only our material possessions but our words, our bodies, our insights, our time, our money, our empathy, our listening, and our compassion.

My own parents, married forty-seven years, always called one another "Dearie".  
"Dearie," one of them would call out. "What is it, Dearie?" the other would always respond, as if to say, Whatever you need, I will give it to you, whatever you ask, I will do it gladly. The antiphony of their "Dearies" was a sweet music that punctuated my young life. To me it meant that they saw one another as equal in spirit, and that in that great love they were always willing to serve one another. They called each other "Dearie" to their dying day.

Generosity is circle that returns unto itself. The more we give, the more we have. And in that state of generosity, willing spiritual sharing, we ourselves are healed.  For when are generous, we can see the vast abundance that is also there for us. This is true generosity because no one is excluded. We are drawn together, united by it. Through it we have a taste of union. It grants us ease and gives us the grace of knowing that life is more than an endless struggle. Indeed it is gracious, generous, and kind.

Generosity needs to come back to the workplace in a big way.

Money is a symbol of that life force, of its appreciation. Money can be a solidified form of love. Through the transfer of money, we facilitate love and communication with other humans. It offers us a simple system of providing for and loving and nurturing ourselves, and it is one way of expressing generosity and kindness for the less fortunate.

According to the Buddhist teachings, wealth should be used for the purpose of helping others; it should support a life of good conduct and human development. According to this principle, when wealth arises for one person, the whole of society benefits, and although it belongs to one person, it is just as if it belonged to the whole community. A wealthy person who uses wealth in this manner is likened to a fertile field in which rice grows abundantly for the benefit of all. Such people generate great benefit for those around them. Without them, the wealth they create would not come to be, and neither would the benefit resulting from it. Guided by generosity, these people feel moved to represent the whole of society, and in return they gain the respect and trust of the community to use their wealth for beneficial purposes.

Anybody who's ever mattered, anybody who's ever been happy, anybody who's ever given any gift into the world has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his own best interest. No exceptions.

You, my Eternal Friend, witness now that I forgive anyone who hurt or upset me or who offended me…May no one be punished because of me.  May no one suffer from karmic consequences for hurting or upsetting me.     Help me, Eternal Friend, to keep from offending You and others.  Help me to be thoughtful and not commit outrage by doing what is evil in Your eyes.   Whatever sins I have committed, blot out, please, in Your abundant kindness, and spare me suffering or harm.  Help me become aware of the ways I may have unintentionally or intentionally hurt others, and please give me guidance and strength to rectify those hurts and to develop the sensitivity to not continue acting in a hurtful way.  Let me forgive others, let me forgive myself, but also let me change in ways that make it easy for me to avoid paths of hurtfulness to others.   I seek peace, let me BE peace. I seek justice, let me be just. I seek a world of kindness, let me be kind. I seek a world of generosity, let me be generous with all that I have. I seek a world of sharing, let me share all that I have. I seek a world of giving, let me be giving to all around me.   I seek a world of love, let me be loving beyond all reason, beyond all normal expectation, beyond all societal frameworks that tell me how much love is “normal,” beyond all fear that giving too much love will leave me with too little.  And let me be open and sensitive to all the love that is already coming to me, the love of people I know, the love that is part of the human condition, the accumulated love of past generations that flows through and is embodied in the language, music, recipes, technology, literature, religions, agriculture, and family heritages that have been passed on to me and to us.  Let me pass that love on to the next generations in an even fuller and more explicit way.   Source of goodness and love in the universe, let me be alive to all the goodness that surrounds me.  And let that awareness of the goodness and love of the universe be my shield and protector.   Hear the words of my mouth and may the meditations of my heart find acceptance before You, Eternal Friend, who protects and frees me so that I may fully engage in the work of Tikkun – the healing and transformation of the world social and economic order, the planet, and myself.

The good four. Honest with ourselves and with whatever is friend to us; courageous toward the enemy; generous toward the vanquished; polite-always that is how the four cardinal virtues want us.

And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry, This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.