Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Charity

"You should remember that though another may have more money, beauty, and brains than you, when it comes to the rarer spiritual values such as charity, self-sacrifice, honor and nobility of heart, you have an equal chance with everyone to be the most beloved and honored of all people." - Archibald Rutledge

"Affliction appears to be the guide to reflection; the teacher of humility; the parent of repentance; the nurse of faith; the strengthener of patience, and the promoter of charity." - Author Unknown NULL

"Religion is a profound humility, a universal charity." - Benjamin Whichcote

"Unreal is action without discipline, charity without sympathy, ritual without devotion." - Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

"The infinite distance between body and mind is a symbol of the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity; for charity is supernatural." - Blaise Pascal

"We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but his image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship." - Blaise Pascal

"Poverty is not wholly a personal failure. It also represents the failure of an economic system. And the remedy is not wholly one of charity, but of political and economic action. Poverty is a reflection also no those who are not poor." -

"In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak - above all, any little child - to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste - never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer - crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature." -

"Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature." - Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

"A disciple having asked for a definition of charity, the Master said, "Love one another."" - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert their natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very nature of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity, whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved." - Edmund Burke

"Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall. But in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it." - Francis Bacon

"He that defers his charity until he is dead is, if a man weighs it rightly, rather liberal of another man’s good than his own." - Francis Bacon

"The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man nor angels come into danger by it." - Francis Bacon

"Charity sees the need not the cause." - German Proverbs

"Love is born of faith, lives on hope, and dies of charity." - Gian-Carlo Menotti

"Eternal life is not a life for the future. By charity we start eternity right here below." - Henri de Lubac

"Our charitable institutions are an insult to humanity. A charity which dispenses the crumbs that fall from its overloaded tables, which are left after its feasts." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others." - Homer NULL

"Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human; the latter is divine." - Hosea Ballou

"True charity is spontaneous and finds its own occasion; it is never the offspring of importunity, nor of emulation." - Hosea Ballou

"This only is charity, to do all, all that we can." - John Donne

"What is in reality cowardice and faithlessness, we call charity, and consider it the part of benevolence sometimes to forgive men’s evil practice for the sake of their accurate faith, and sometimes to forgive their confessed heresy for the sake of their admirable practice." - John Ruskin

"Charity is a virtue of the heart and not of the hands." - Joseph Addison

"Charity is the perfection and ornament of religion." - Joseph Addison

"Charity has no label, compassion no religion, wisdom no dogma, empathy no rules. Integrity needs no laws, enlightenment no temples. Living in total harmony with Tao is beyond culture, oneness with Tao beyond philosophy. Emptiness and silence cannot be defined. The Way has no name, for it is Tao." -

"Nobody is ever impoverished through the giving of charity." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

"There are eight rungs in charity. The highest is when you help a man to help himself." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

"Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

"The foundation of all foundations, and the pillar of all wisdom, is to know that there is a First Existence, who brings all existences into being." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

"Children have but little charity for each other’s defects." -

"Anticipate charity by preventing poverty." - Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler

"I prefer charity to hospitality because charity begins at home and hospitality ends there." - Ogden Nash

"The more charity, the more peace." - Rabbi Hillel "The Elder" NULL

"I define charity as a motion of the soul whose purpose is to enjoy God for His own sake and one’s self and one’s neighbor for the sake of god. Lust, on the other hand is a motion of the soul bent upon enjoying one’s self, one’s neighbor, and any creature without reference to God." -

"Charity is a virtue which when our affections are perfectly ordered, unites us to God, for by it we love Him." -

"The chill of charity is the silence of the heart: the flame of charity is the clamor of the heart." -

"Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the person who listens to it; so that a single calumny may prove fatal to an infinite number of souls; since it kills not only those who circulate it, but also all those who do not reject it." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL

"A judicious silence is always better than truth spoken without charity." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL

"To love our neighbor with a love of charity is to love God in man or man in God and consequently, to love God alone for His own sake and creatures for the love of God." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL

"What are these virtues of spirit? They are faith, which shows us truths entirely elevated above the senses; hope, which makes us aspire to things invisible; charity, which makes us love not of sense, not of nature, not of self-interest, but with a love pure, solid and unchangeable, having its foundation in God." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL

"The sincerity which is not charitable proceeds from a charity which is not sincere." - Saint Francis de Sales NULL

"The curiosity of an honorable mind willingly rests there, where the love of truth does not urge it farther onward, and the love its I neighbor bids it stop; in other words, it willingly stops at the point where the interests of truth do not beckon it onward, and charity cries, Halt!" -

"But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner." -

"Ecstatic worship which is devoid of charity is for all practical purposes heathen." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet

"What is an offering to God? Charity to His children." - Midrash or The Midrash NULL

"Charity must be given in secret." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL