129 Charity Quotes

In a world where kindness and generosity can sometimes feel in short supply, a few well-chosen words have the power to inspire and uplift. Charity quotes, in particular, remind us of the profound impact that selfless acts can have on individuals and communities alike. Whether you're looking to motivate yourself to give back or seeking a thoughtful message to share with others, our curated collection of the top 129 charity quotes offers timeless wisdom and heartfelt inspiration. Join us as we explore these powerful words and rekindle the spirit of giving that lives within us all.

1. “I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” - Abraham Lincoln

2. “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

3. “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone....We leave you a tradition with a future.The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.People even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.Never throw out anybody.Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.Your “good old days” are still ahead of you, may you have many of them.” - Sam levenson

4. “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.” - Horace Mann

5. “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” - Dom Helder Camara

6. “It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” - Mother Theresa

7. “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” - John Holmes

8. “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

9. “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” - John Bunyan

10. “When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this easily managed.” - C.S. Lewis

11. “Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.” - Alexander Pope

12. “The most treasured and sacred moments of our lives are those filled with the spirit of love. The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy. In the end, the development of such love is the true measure of success in life.” - Joseph B. Wirthlin

13. “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

14. “Don't judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence.” - Josemaría Escrivá

15. “Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.” - Terry Goodkind

16. “What's the point of doing something good if nobody's watching?” - Nicole Kidman

17. “We only have what we give.” - Isabel Allende

18. “The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.” - William Hutton

19. “The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.” - Mahatma Gandhi

20. “I have often wondered, Sir, [. . .] to observe so few Instances of Charity among Mankind; for tho' the Goodness of a Man's Heart did not incline him to relieve the Distresses of his Fellow-Creatures, methinks the Desire of Honour should move him to it. What inspires a Man to build fine Houses, to purchase fine Furniture, Pictures, Clothes, and other things at a great Expence, but an Ambition to be respected more than other People? Now would not one great Act of Charity, one Instance of redeeming a poor Family from all the Miseries of Poverty, restoring an unfortunate Tradesman by a Sum of Money to the means of procuring a Livelihood by his Industry, discharging an undone Debtor from his Debts or a Goal, or any such Example of Goodness, create a Man more Honour and Respect than he could acquire by the finest House, Furniture, Pictures or Clothes that were ever beheld? For not only the Object himself who was thus relieved, but all who heard the Name of such a Person must, I imagine, reverence him infinitely more than the Possessor of all those other things: which when we so admire, we rather praise the Builder, the Workman, the Painter, the Laceman, the Taylor, and the rest, by whose Ingenuity they are produced, than the Person who by his Money makes them his own.” - Henry Fielding

21. “Fundraising is an extreme sport!” - Marc A. Pitman

22. “Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.” - Peter Singer

23. “He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.” - G.K. Chesterton

24. “What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man.” - Deanna Raybourn

25. “In the things that really matter--our covenants, the commandments, and following the prophet--we need to be completely united. In the non-essentials, we have our agency to handle things as we see fit. But, in all things, regardless of whether we make the same choices or not, we are to treat each other with dignity and respect, both of which are evidences of charity in our hearts and lives.” - Sheri L. Dew

26. “Thus, when we plead for the gift of charity, we aren't asking for lovely feelings toward someone who bugs us or someone who has injured or wounded us. We are actually pleading for our very natures to be changed, for our character and disposition to become more and more like the Savior's, so that we literally feel as He would feel and thus do what He would do.” - Sheri L. Dew

27. “It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.” - Ayn Rand

28. “You know, that man has a spirit, that each man and woman is unique, that we have duty to promote our unalienable rights and to protect them, that we have a duty to our families and ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to contribute to charity, that we have a duty to support a just and righteous law that is stable and predictable.” - Mark R. Levin

29. “I've purged myself of worldly goods; half my stuff is either being sold or going to charity. I need to go shopping.” - Christy Leigh Stewart

30. “While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.” - Chinua Achebe

31. “Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.” - Chinua Achebe

32. “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” - Charles Dickens

33. “They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I took mine and fell flat on my face. As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce...I concluded that if I could only nudge the world a little bit, maybe that would be enough.But nudging isn't enough.” - Jacqueline Novogratz

34. “Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.” - G.K. Chesterton

35. “If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God’s.” - Jonathan Edwards

36. “God damn it, you've got to be kind.” - Kurt Vonnegut

37. “It didn´t occur to me until later that there´s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.” - Stephen King

38. “Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.” - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

39. “Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same -- with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead.” - Mother Teresa

40. “The principle of neighborhood at home always implies the principle of charity abroad. (pg. 260, The Idea of a Local Economy)” - Wendell Berry

41. “Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.” - Wendell Berry

42. “When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.” - Muhammad Yunus

43. “تبسمك في وجه أخيك صدقة، وأمرك بالمعروف صدقة ونهيك عن المنكر صدقة، وإرشادك الرجل في أرض الضلال لك صدقة، ونصرك الرجل الرديء البصر لك صدقة، وإماطتك الحجر والشوك العظم عن الطريق لك صدقةSmiling in your brother’s face is an act of charity. So is enjoining good and forbidding evil, giving directions to the lost traveller, aiding the blind and removing obstacles from the path.(Graded authentic by Ibn Hajar and al-Albani: Hidaayat-ur-Ruwaah, 2/293)” - Anonymous

44. “In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.” - John Quincy Adams

45. “That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.” - George Gissing

46. “The first rule of Evernight is that any vampire who seeks sanctuary must be given a place." -Charity” - Claudia Gray

47. “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

48. “Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.” - William Blake

49. “Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical.” - Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger)

50. “So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.” - Robert Green Ingersoll

51. “Those who are truly alive are kindly and unsuspecting in their human relationships and consequently endangered under present conditions. They assume that others think and act generously, kindly and helpfully, in accordance with the laws of life. This natural attitude, fundamental to healthy children as well as primitive man, inevitably represents a great danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as the emotional plague subsists, because the plague-ridden impute their own manner of thinking and acting to their fellow men. A kindly man believes that all men are kindly, while one infected with the plague believes that all men lie and cheat and are hungry for power. In such a situation, the living are at an obvious disadvantage. When they give to the plague-ridden they are sucked dry, then ridiculed or betrayed.” - Wilhelm Reich

52. “the holy art of “giving for Jesus’ sake” ought to be much more strongly developed among us Christians. Never forget that all state relief for the poor is a blot on the honor of your savior. The fact that the government needs a safety net to catch those who would slip between the cracks of our economic system is evidence that I have failed to do God’s work. The government cannot take the place of Christian charity. A loving embrace isn’t given with food stamps. The care of a community isn’t provided with government housing. The face of our Creator can’t be seen on a welfare voucher. What the poor need is not another government program; what they need is for Christians like me to honor our savior.” - Abraham Kuyper

53. “God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves.” - C.S. Lewis

54. “If you’re in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.” - Warren Buffett

55. “But charity is the PURE LOVE OF CHRIST, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.Moroni 7” - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

56. “Give, but give until it hurts.” - Mother Teresa

57. “Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil.” - Tom Robbins

58. “Charity is one of those remarkable words that helps to identify the fault lines of a culture.” - Janet Poppendieck

59. “We believe that only government has the capacity--not to mention the political and moral responsibility--to promote the general welfare. Father Kramer as quoted in Sweet Charity?” - Janet Poppendieck

60. “Emergency food has become very useful indeed, and to a very large assortment of people and institutions. The United States Department of Agriculture uses it to reduce the accumulation of embarrassing agricultural surpluses. Business uses it to dispose of nonstandard or unwanted product, to protect employee morale and avoid dump fees, and, of course, to accrue tax savings. Celebrities use it for exposure. Universities and hospitals, as well as caterers and restaurants, use it to absorb leftovers. Private schools use it to teach ethics, and public schools use it to instill a sense of civic responsibility. Churches use it to express their concern for the least of their brethren, and synagogues use it to be faithful to the tradition of including the poor at the table. Courts use it to avoid incarcerating people arrested for Driving While Intoxicated and a host of other offense. Environmentalists use it to reduce the solid waste stream. Penal institutions use it to create constructive outlets for the energies of their inmates, and youth-serving agencies of all sorts use it to provide service opportunities for young people. Both profit-making and nonprofit organizations use it to absorb unneeded kitchen and office equipment. A wide array of groups, organizations, and institutions benefits from the halo effect of 'feeding the hungry,' and this list does not even include the many functions for ordinary individuals--companionship, exercise, meaning, and purpose. . .If we didn't have hunger, we'd have to invent it.” - Janet Poppendieck

61. “In college I took a social psychology course, something I thought useful for a career in advertising. Psychologists tested the story of the Good Samaritan. What they learned gives us reason to pause. The greatest determinant of who stopped to help the stranger in need was not compassion, morality, or religious creed. It was those who had the time. Makes me wonder if I have time to do good. Apparently, Angel does.” - Richard Paul Evans

62. “That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.” - Simone de Beauvoir

63. “You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.” - vincent de paul

64. “To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.” - Abraham Lincoln

65. “You cannot be fair to others without first being fair to yourself.Know that a well-honed sense of justice is a measure of personal experience, and all experience is a measure of self.Know that the highest expression of justice is mercy.Thus, as the supreme judge in your own court, you must have compassion for yourself.Otherwise, cede your gavel.” - Vera Nazarian

66. “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.” - C.S. Lewis

67. “Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.” - George Sand

68. “Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” - Shannon Alder

69. “I gave him everything from my lunches I hate, which is called Charity.” - David James Duncan

70. “Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.” - Walt Whitman

71. “Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be—but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition.” - Hugh Nibley

72. “Take The Walk is not about individuals becoming great in order to impact the world, it is about discovering the greatness of individuals as they use what they already have to touch the lives of the dying, sick and poor. It is about normal people with careers, families, and responsibilities, asking 'How can what I already do and what I already am make a difference in lives half a world away?” - Hanson

73. “As they were walking, a beggar came up, holding his hand out and crying, "Baksheesh! Baksheesh!"Mike kept on going but Mitchell stopped. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out twenty paise and placed it in the beggar's dirty hand.Mike said, "I used to give to beggars when I first came here. But then I realized, it's hopeless. It never stops.""Jesus said you should give to whoever asks you," Mitchell said."Yeah, well," Mike said, "obviously Jesus was never in Calcutta.” - Jeffrey Eugenides

74. “The Sikh gave him the money. When Menon asked for his address so that he could repay the man, the Sikh said that Menon owed the debt to any stranger who came to him in need, as long as he lived. The help came from a stranger and was to be repaid to a stranger.” - Robert Fulghum

75. “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” - Booker T. Washington

76. “In a world plagued with commonplace tragedies, only one thing exists that truly has the power to save lives, and that is love.” - Richelle Goodrich

77. “Sometimes those who give the most are the ones with the least to spare.” - Mike McIntyre

78. “I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing - an interstellar kula chain - affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy - tying them together, building common traditions... The notion strikes me as kind of fine.” - Roger Zelazny

79. “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.” - Marcus Aurelius

80. “I interviewed my dad on video in his final weeks. When I asked about his work and finding meaning through helping others, he responded, "I don't think you can be focused on, 'Oh gee, I want to make a difference.' It has to be spontaneous. If it's not...there's some kind of egotistical thing going on. That's a red flag. You hope you impact people on the deepest level you are capable of at the time. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you don't. You're trying.” - Lisa Shannon

81. “Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience.” - Nicolás Gómez Dávila

82. “Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You're scarred for life.” - Jeannette Walls

83. “One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly.” - Robert McAfee Brown

84. “If you always try to measure yourself withmoney... well, it's like counting backwards, the more youkeep on, the less you'll have to show for it.” - Steven J. Carroll

85. “... love for our neighbours does not die the minute we enter heaven, it intensifies.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

86. “That's it. Love makes us all strong.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

87. “There comes a time in the development of every ego when it must love its neighbors or become a twisted and stunted personality.” - Joshua Loth Liebman

88. “Cuando haces una obra de caridad, on en mi caso de solidaridad, te sientes con derecho a ser como eres y tener lo que tienes. Ya pagaste tu impuesto, ¿ajá?” - Xavier Velasco

89. “I realize the simple truth is that power isn’t control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” - Beth Revis

90. “The greatest gift you can ever give is yourself.” - Michel Templet

91. “Our prayers for others flow more easily than those for ourselves. This shows we are made to live by charity.” - C.S. Lewis

92. “Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?” - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

93. “The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.” - Christopher Hitchens

94. “Helping others carries its own rewards, the first of which is a return to humanity.” - Richard Paul Evans

95. “From the standpoint of the upper classes, the system had many merits. They felt that what was paid out of the poor rate was charity, and therefore a proof of their benevolence; at the same time, wages were kept at starvation level by a method which just prevented discontent from developing into revolution...It was plainly the certainty, derived from the old Poor Law, that actual death would be averted by the parish authorities, which induced the rural poor of England to endure their misery patiently...it taught them respect for their 'betters'.While leaving all the wealth that they produced, beyond the absolute minimum required for subsistence, in the hands of the landowners and farmers. It was at this period that landowners built the sham Gothic ruins called 'follies', where they indulged in romantic sensibility about the past while they filled the present with misery and degradation.” - Bertrand Russell

96. “Your uniqueness is your greatest strength, not how well you emulate others.” - Simon S. Tam

97. “There are only two ways to live your life. One as if all that matters is to have someone love and accept you. The other is as though loving and accepting another person is all that matters. Often, when you choose the second you get the first.” - Shannon L. Alder

98. “Service is a smile.  It is an acknowledging wave, a reaching handshake, a friendly wink, and a warm hug.   It's these simple acts that matter most, because the greatest service to a human soul has always been the kindness of recognition.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

99. “I'm starting to think this world is just a place for us to learn that we need each other more than we want to admit.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

100. “Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said, "Where there is no money, there is no learning." The rabbis explain that unless people's stomachs are full and satisfied, they cannot study, grow spiritually, and do good works.” - H.W. Charles

101. “Jews highly value having an abundance of money for the sake of caring for their families and for helping the needy.” - H.W. Charles

102. “The one single use of things which we call our own is that they might be his who hath need of them.” - Thomas Hughes

103. “There are these amazing little seeds called compassion.  You should grow some.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

104. “I want to be a woman who lives totally abandoned to the first commandment: to love my Lord, my God, with all my heart. I don’t want the reputation that I love God, I don’t want to write songs about loving God, I don’t want to talk about loving God. I want to actually love God. When I close my eyes, I want my heart to move. When I close my eyes and I look at Him, I want to feel alive on the inside. I want to look at Him with a fire in my heart and it’s real.” - Misty Edwards

105. “God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turned out to have other things more important to do than come live it up with him, goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show. The man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. The old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. The old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag. The pusher, the whore, the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as the cars go by. They are seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are all lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host, the musicians in their gallery strike up "Amazing Grace.” - Frederick Buechner

106. “...a great man who is vicious will only be a great doer of evil, and a rich man who is not liberal will be only a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it - and not by spending as he please but by knowing how to spend it well. To the poor gentleman there is no other way of showing that he is a gentleman than by virtue, by being affable, well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered and helpful; not haughty, arrogant or censorious, but above all by being charitable...and no one who sees him adorned with the virtues I have mentioned, will fail to recognize and judge him, though he know him not, to be of good stock.” - Miguel Cervantes

107. “Fight vigorously against the wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep. And this you may do by inveighing against the laws and lawgivers, and yet at the same time observing these laws with the weak, lest they be offended, until they shall themselves recognize the tyranny, and understand their own liberty.” - Martin Luther

108. “That churchgoers do the lion's share of the charitable work in our communities is simply untrue. They get credit for it because they do a better job of tying the good works they do to their creed. But according to a 1998 study, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and immediate church community. As a result of this siphoning of volunteer energy into the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the larger community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- comes from the category of "unchurched" volunteers.” - Dale McGowan

109. “It is not what you leave to your children that matters, but what you leave in them.” - Shannon L. Alder

110. “The Three D's of Creating True Happiness For All.......Declutter - Remove all unwanted items from your home,Donate - to your local charity, Deduct - Save money by claiming your donation on your tax return” - Christina Scalise

111. “I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.” - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

112. “It is the apathetic person that sees the cause while the charitable person sees the need.” - Shannon L. Alder

113. “This much is true: When you are about to effect the lives of hundreds of people, Satan will do everything he can to prevent it from happening. Often pride and anger are his best assassins.” - Shannon L. Alder

114. “We never think lightly of those who walk with us on our uphill days.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

115. “I hate these affairs", he'd told her once, tearing up an engraved invitation to an exclusive charity ball. "They're the worst kind of discrimination. An invitation doesn't really mean that you're invited; it means that a whole lot of people aren't” - Melinda Cross

116. “It takes a female to have a baby,It takes a woman to raise a child,It takes a mother to raise them correctly,It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.” - Shannon L. Alder

117. “A single act of kindness is like a drop of oil on a patch of dry skin—seeping, spreading, and affecting more than the original need.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

118. “Every sunrise is an invitation for us to arise and brighten someone's day.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

119. “Kindness is a currency that can cover a multitude of interpersonal debts.” - George Alexiou

120. “Success follows those who champion a cause greater than themselves.” - George Alexiou

121. “If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man with no shirt.” - St. Ambrose

122. “Charity you can give even when you haven't got.” - Bernard Malamud

123. “Little deeds that proceed from charity please God and have their place among meritorious acts.” - St. Francis de Sales

124. “Let us make our way through these low valleys of the humble and little virtues. We shall see in them the roses amid the thorns, charity that shows its beauty among interior and exterior afflictions, the lilies of purity.” - St. Francis de Sales

125. “The body is poisoned through the mouth, even so is the heart through the ear ... And even if we do mean no harm, the Evil One means a great deal, and he will use those idle words as a sharp weapon against some neighbor's heart.” - St. Francis de Sales

126. “Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there.” - St. Francis de Sales

127. “Examine your heart often to see if it is such toward your neighbor as you would like his to be toward you were you in his place. This is the touchstone of true reason.” - St. Francis de Sales

128. “Ought we not to love dearly the neighbor, who truly represents to us the sacred Person of our Master? And is this not one of the most powerful motives we could have for loving each other with an ardently burning love?” - St. Francis de Sales

129. “Our possessions are not ours- God has given them to us to cultivate, that we may make them fruitful and profitable in His Service, and so doing we shall please Him.” - St. Francis de Sales