Home > Advise > Quotations on Philanthropy

QUOTATIONS ON PHILANTHROPY

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
-- Margaret Mead


"The results of philanthropy are always beyond calculation."
-- Miriam Beard


"Volunteer activities can foster enormous leadership skills. The nonprofessional volunteer world is a laboratory for self-realization."
-- Madeleine Kunin


"The greatest gift is a portion of thyself."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson


"To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another."
-- Benjamin Jowett


"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer


"When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another."
-- Helen Keller


"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
-- Yogi Berra


"Every community needs a great many services...by rewarding such work with honor and esteem, the very best men can be had for nothing."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith


"Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary."
-- Margaret Cousins


"The monument of a great man is not of granite or marble or bronze. It consists of his goodness, his deeds, his love and his compassion."
-- Alfred A. Montapert


"I just want to leave the world a little better than I found it, and that's my goal in life."
-- Armand Hammer


"There are glimpses of heaven in every act, or thought, or word that raises us above ourselves."
-- Arthur P. Stanley


"If your heart is in the right place, if affords you appropriate opportunity to do things for others, to express your good will, to let yourself go sentimentally, philanthropically.'
-- B.C. Forbes


"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident."
-- Charles Lamb


"One more good man on earth is better than an extra angel in heaven."
-- Chinese Proverb


"He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own."
--Confucius


"The act of philanthropy is a spiritual act, an expression of caring for one's fellow human beings. It is a belief in the future that the future can be good. It is investing in that future. It is helping to make the dream come true."
-- Arthur C. Frantzreb


"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."
-- Albert Einstein


"In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so...to assist, but rarely or never to do all."
-- Dale Carnegie


"He who has never denied himself for the sake of giving, has but glanced at the joys of charity."
-- Anne Swetchine


"Believe in something larger than yourself...Get involved in some of the big ideas of your time."
-- Barbara Bush


"To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else."
-- Bernadette Devlin


"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth."
-- Aristotle


"Whoever acquires knowledge but does not practice it is like one who ploughs a field but does not sow it."
-- Calvin Coolidge


"Education, in the broadest and truest sense, will make an individual seek to help all people, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of condition."
-- George Washington Carver


"Philanthropy is an important subject of liberal education because it examines the role of good works in shaping our conceptions of the good society and the good life."
-- Robert L. Payton


"We forget that there is no hope of joy except in human relations."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


"In believing in others, we are believed in. In supporting others, we gain followers, and in recognizing the value of others, we are honored."
-- Solon B. Cousins


"America has had a long and rich tradition of generosity that began with simple acts of neighbor helping neighbor."
-- Helen Boosalis


"He who gives what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice."
-- Henry Taylor


"Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity."
-- Henry Ward Beecher


"To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh


"Giving is true loving."
-- Charles H. Spurgeon


"Every ray of light that we shed upon others is reflected upon ourselves...and every gift to the needy, if prompted by the right motive, will result in blessings to the giver."
-- Ellen G. White


"It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live."
-- Ethel Percy Andrus


"We are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. Think right, act right; it is what we think and do that makes us who we are."
-- Elbert Hubbard


"Stand for something: have passion and compassion for something larger than yourself. Care greater and deeper about others."
-- Jerold Panas


"Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams."
-- Robert K. Greenleaf


"Be life short or long, its completeness depends on what it was lived for."
-- David Starr Jordan


"Live simply that others may simply live."
-- Elizabeth Seton


"The central purpose of each life should be to dilute the misery in the world."
-- Karl Menninger


"A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past life is to live twice."
-- Martial


"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
-- Ursula K. le Guin


"To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic."
-- Alphonse de Lamartine


"Love is not only something you feel. It's something you do."
-- David Wilkerson


"Freedom is not constituted primarily of privileges but of responsibilities."
-- Albert Camus


"Philanthropy is an expression of man's concern for man."
-- Charles E. Bradford


"Philanthropy flows from a loving heart not an overstuffed pocketbook."
-- Douglas M. Lawson


"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."
-- Albert Schweitzer


"A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a cause outside his own individual selfish satisfaction."
-- Benjamin Spock


"The most acceptable service of God is doing good to man."
-- Benjamin Franklin


"I prefer to be remembered for what I have done for others, not what others have done for me."
-- Thomas Jefferson


"Be generous and you will be prosperous. Help others, and you will be helped."
-- Proverbs


"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them."
-- Ann Landers


"What is important? What I consider success is that I make a contribution to the world."
-- Ben Carson


"The thing which counts is the striving of the human soul to achieve spiritually the best that it is capable of and to care unselfishly not only for personal good, but for the good of all those who toil with them upon the earth."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt


"When you consider everything you have is a gift from God, it's amazing how little gratitude we show. Giving to others is such a small way to say thank you."
-- Charles L. Overby


"Gratitude is the hearts memory."
-- French Proverb


"There is nothing that can have a more powerful effect on your mental health than the spirit of thankfulness."
-- George E. Vandeman


"It is by those only who are truly great, that virtue is esteemed more than riches or honors, or that virtuous actions can be actions can be duly appreciated."
-- Aldrude


"What is virtue? It is to hold yourself to your fullest development as a person and as a responsible member of the human community."
-- Arthur Dobrin


"There is just one virtue: the eternal sacrifice of self."
-- George Sand


"It may seem paradoxical, but if you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them become better than they are."
-- John W. Gardner


"One volunteer is better than ten forced men."
-- African Proverb


"This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor."
-- Abraham Lincoln


"Too many people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
-- Ann Landers


"A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone."
-- Henry David Thoreau


"Riches are not from an abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind."
-- Mohammed


"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
-- Anais Nin


"We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us commit it to life."
-- Edwin Markham


"Collectively we can do what no person can do singly."
-- Leland Kaiser


"It is impossible to be the best we can be in isolation."
-- Paula P. Brownlee


"True charity is the desire to be useful to others without thought of recompense."
-- Emanuel Swedenborg


"We won't always know whose lives we touched and made better for our having cared, because actions can sometimes have unforeseen ramifications. What's important is that you do care and you act."
-- Charlotte Lunsford


"Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left."
-- Fulton J. Sheen


"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
-- Helen Keller


"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.


"When you stop giving and offering something to the rest of the world, it's time to turn out the lights."
-- George Burns


""Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail."
-- Anonymous


"If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."
-- Bob Hope


"Philanthropy: giving your money to people who will possibly appreciate it rather than leaving it to your relatives."
-- Anonymous


"We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give."
-- Winston Churchillv


"To be permanently effective, aid must always take the form of helping a man to help himself."
-- Theodore Roosevelt


"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."
-- Jack London


"Do it now. It is not safe to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influence of the world."
-- Thomas Guthrie


"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
-- Aesop


"Charity is a virtue of the heart. Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue."
-- Joseph Addison


"People think that if they were right they would contribute to charities. My experience has been that if you don't start giving away your money when you have very little, you won't do it when you get a lot."
-- Robert Bainum


"It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place."
-- Andrew Carnegie


"Continually give, continually gain."
-- Chinese proverb


"The word philanthropy has its roots in the Greek language meaning 'love for mankind.' It was never meant to apply only to donors of thousands or millions of dollars."
-- Arthur Frantzreb


"Charity sees the need, not the cause."
-- German proverb


"It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding."
-- Kahlil Gibran


"The main problem is not the haves and the have-nots -- it's the give-nots."
-- Arnold Glasowv


"Do your givin' while you're livin'... then you'll be knowin' where it's goin'."
-- Ann Landers


"He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much."
-- Lao-Tzu


"I will charge thee nothing but the promise that thee will help the next man thee finds in trouble."
-- Mennonite proverb


"To keep a lamp burning, we have to put oil in it."
-- Mother Teresa


"Charity begins at home, but should not end there."
-- Scottish proverb


"He who gives when he is asked has waited too long."
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca


"By always taking out and never putting in, the bottom is soon reached."
-- Spanish proverb


"Charity begins at home and generally dies from lack of outdoor exercise."
-- Anonymous


"If you are not poor enough to take charity, you are rich enough to give it."
-- Anonymous


"Charity and pride have different aims, yet both feed the poor."
-- Anonymous